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B. !"•'''": 




THE GRAYSON S 



A STORY OF ILLINOIS 



BY 



EDWARD EGGLESTON 

AUTHOR OF " THE HOOSJER SCHOOLMASTER," 
"ROXY," **THE CIRCUIT RIDER,'* ETC., ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

ALLEGRA EGGLESTON 







THE CENTURY CO. 



NEW-YORK. 



V 



COPraiOHT, 1887, 

BY Edward Eoolbston. 



• * 



• • • 



Tm Df Vinni 






•'7 1 



PREFACE, 



I had thought to close up the cycle of my stories of life in 
the Mississippi Valley with ^^Boxy/^ which was published in 
1878. But when I undertook by request of the editor to write 
a short story for " The Century Magazine/' and to found it on 
a legendary account of one of President LincoMs trials, the 
theme grew on my hands until the present novel was the 
result. It was written mostly at Nervi, near Genoa, where 
I could not by any possibility have verified the story I had 
received about 1867 from one of LincoMs old neighbors. 
To have investigated the €u:curacy of my version of the anec- 
dote would have been, indeed, to fly in the face and eyes of 
providence, for popular tradition is itself an artist rough- 
heunng a story to the novelists hands. During the appear- 
ance of this novel in serial form I have received many letters 
from persons acquainted in one way or another with the 
actors and sufferers in the events, of which these here related 
are the ideal counterparts, Sotne of these letters contain in- 
formation or relate incidents of so much interest that I have 
it in mind to insert them in an appendix to some later edition 
of this book. 

EDWARD EGGLE8T0N. 

Joshiu^a Bock, Lake George^ 1888. 



This Book is respectfully inscribed to the Hon. Jonathan 
Chace, United States Senator from Rhode Island ; the Hon. 
Joseph Hawley, United States Senator from Connecticut; 
the Hon. W. C. P. Breckenridge, Representative from Ken- 
tucky; AND THE Hon. Patrick A. G>LLiNSy Representative 
from Massachusetts, who have recently introduced or 

HAD charge of INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT BUXS, AND TO THOSE 

Members of both Houses of Congress who have cooperated 
with them in the effort to put down uterary buccaneering. 

£. E. 



To MY FRIEND, MaBEL G>0KE, 

I Dedicate the Ideals op 

WHICH THESE ILLUSTRATIONS 

ARE THE Faint and Awk- 
ward Shadows. 

The Illustrator. 



CONTENTS. 



I 


Turning the Bible 


Paob 

1 


II 


Winning and Losing 


18 


in 


Paying the Fiddler 


28 


IV 


Locxwood's Plan 


34 


V 


The MiTi'EN 


43 


VI 


Uncle and Nephew 


53 


VII 


Lockwood's Revenge 


59 


Vlil 


Barbara's Private Affairs 


73 


IX 


By the Loom 


90 


X 


The Affair at Timber Creek Camp-Meeting 


107 


XT 


Friends in the Night 


121 


XII 


A Trip to Broad Run 


128 


XTII 


A Bear Hunt 


M6 


XIV 


In Prison 


160 


XV 


Abraham Lincoln 


172 


XVI 


The Coroner's Inquest 


182 


XVU 


A Council of War 


193 


xvm zekb 


200 


XIX 


The Myth 


209 



XX 

XXI 
XXII 

xxni 

XXIV 

XXV 

XXVI 

xxvn 
xxvin 

XXX 

XXXI 

XXXII 

XXXIII 



Lincoln and Bob 
Hiram and Barbara 
The First Day of Court 
Broad Bun in Arms 
First Come, First Served 
Like a Wolf on the Fold 
Circumstantial Evidence 
Light in a Dark Place 
Free 

The Close of a Career 
Tom and Rachel 
Hiram and Barbara 
The Next MpRKiNa 
Postscriptum 



Page 
219 

231 
246 
250 
260 
275 
286 
295 
313 
323 
327 
338 
349 
352 



THE GRAYSONS 



THE GBAYSONS 



TUBNINQ THE BIBLB 




3HE place of the 1)egmDmg of this stoiy was a 

T"^ conntry neighborliood on a shore, if one may 
^J§ call it 80, that divided a forest and prairie in 
('ontr^ Dlinoia. The date vas nearly a life- 
time ago. An orange-colored snn going down behind the 
thrifty orchard of young apple-trees on John Albangh's 
farm, pat into shadow the front of a dwelling which had 
stood in wind and weather long enongh to have lost the 
raw look of newness, and to have its tints so softened that 
it had become a part of the circnmjacent landscape. The 
phebe-bird, locally known as the pewee, had jnst finished 
calling from the top of the large bam, and a belated harvest- 
fly, or singing locnst, as the people call hitn, was yet filling 
the warm air with the most snmmery of all summery notes 
— notes that seem to be felt as well as heard, pushing one 



2 THE GRATS0N8 

another faster and yet faster throngh the quivering atmos- 
phere, and then dying away by degrees into languishing, 
long-drawn, and at last barely audible vibrations. 

Rachel, the daughter of the prosperous owner of the farm, 
was tying some jasmine vines to the upright posts that 
supported the roof of a porch, or veranda, which stretched 
along the entire front of the house. She wore a fresh calico 
gown, and she had something the air of one expecting the 
arrival of guests. She almost always expected company in 
the evening of a fine day. For the young person whose 
fortune it is to be by long odds the finest-looking woman in 
a new country where young men abound, and where women 
are appreciated at a rate proportioned to their scarcity, 
knows what it is to be a "reigning belle" indeed. In the 
vigorous phrase of the country, Rachel was described as 
" real knock-down handsome " ; and, tried by severer stand- 
ards than those of Illinois, her beauty would have been 
beyond question. She had the three essentials : eyes that 
were large and lustrous, a complexion rich and fresh, yet 
delicately tinted, and features well-balanced and harmoni- 
ous. Her blonde hair was abundant, and, like everything 
about her, vital. Her hands and feet were not overlarge, 
and, fortunately, they were not disproportionately small ; 
but just the hands and feet of a well-developed country girl 
used to activity and the open air. Without being more than 
ordinarily clever, she had a certain passive intelligence. 
Her voice was not a fine one, nor had her manners any par- 
ticular charm except that which comes from the repose of 



TURNING THE BIBLE 3 

one who imderstands that she is at her best when silent, 
and who feels herself easily ahead of rivals without making 
any exertion. Hers was one of those faces the sight of 
which quickens the pulses even of an old man, and attracts 
young men with a fascination as irresistible as it is beyond 
analysis or description. Many young men were visitors at 
John Albaugh's hospitable house, and where the young men 
came the young women were prone to come, and thus 
Albaugh's became a place of frequent and spontaneous 
resort for the young people from all the country round. 

But it had happened with this much-courted girl, as it has 
happened to many another like her, that with all the world 
to choose from, she had tarried single longer than her com- 
panions. Rachel was now past twenty-three, in a land 
where a woman was accounted something of an old maid if 
unmarried at twenty. Beauties such as she find a certain 
pleasure in playing with their destiny, as pussy loves the 
excitement of trifling with the mouse that can hardly escape 
her in any way. Prey that comes too easily in reach is not 
highly valued. Every bid for such a woman's hand leads 
her to raise her estimation of her own value. Rachel's lovers 
came and went, and married themselves to young women 
without beauty. Lately, however, Rachel Albaugh's neigh- 
bors began to think that she had at length fallen in love 
"for keeps,'' as the country phrase expressed it. 

" I say, Rache," called her brother Ike, a youth of fifteen, 
who was just then half -hidden in the boughs of the summer 
apple-tree by the garden gate, " they 's somebody coming." 



4 THE GRATSONS 

" Who is it, Ike t'' 

" Henry Miller and the two Miller girls.'' 

'' Oh 1 is that all f " said Bachel, in a teasing tone. 

" Is that all f ^ said Ike. " You don't care for anybody 
but Tom Grayson these days. I 'U bet you Tom '11 be here 
to-night" 

" What makes you think so ! " asked Rachel, trying not 
to evince any interest in the information. 

" Don't you wish you knew t " he answered, glad to repay 
her teasing in kind. 

" Did you see him to-day ! " 

''Say, Sis," said Ike, affecting to dismiss the subject, 
" here 's an awful nice apple. Can you ketch t " 

Rachel held up her hands to catch the apple, baring her 
pretty arms by the falling back of her loose sleeves. The 
mischievous Ike threw a swift baU, and Rachel, holding her 
hands for it, could not help shrinking as the apple came 
flying at her. She shut her eyes and ducked her head, and 
of course the apple went past her, bowling away along the 
porch and off the other end of it into the grass. 

" That 's just like a girl," said Ike. " Here 's a better 
apple. I won't throw so hard this time." And Rachel 
caught the large striped apple in her two hands. 

"I say, Ike," she said, coaxingly, "where did you see 
Tom!» 

" Oh ! I met him over on the big road as I went to mill 
this morning; he was going home to his mother's, an* he 
said he was coming over to see you to-night. An' I told 



TUUNING THE BIBLE 5 

him to fetch Barbara, so 's I 'd have somebody to talk to, 
'cause you would n't let me get a word in ageways with 
him. An' Tom laughed an' looked tickled." 

" I guess you won't talk much to Barbara while Ginnie 
Miller 's here/' Rachel said ) and by this time Henry Miller 
and his two sisters were nearing the white gate which stood 
forty feet away from the cool front porch of the house. 

" Howdy, Rachel ! " said Henry Miller, as he reached the 
gate, and " Howdy I Howdy ! " came from the two sisters, 
to which Rachel answered with a cordial " Howdy I Come 
in ! " meant for the three. When they reached the porch, 
she led the way through the open front door to the " settin' 
room " of the house, as the living-room was always called 
in that day. The fire-place looked like an extinct crater ; 
curtains of narrow green slats hung at the windows, and 
the floor was covered by a new rag-carpet in which was im- 
bedded a whole history of family costume ; a patient geolo- 
gist might have discovered in it traces of each separate 
garment worn in the past five years by the several members 
of the Albaugh family. The mantel-piece was common- 
place enough, of "poplar" wood — that is, tulip-tree — 
painted brown. The paint whUe fresh had been scratched 
in rhythmical waves with a common coarse comb. This 
graining resembled that of some wood yet undiscovered. 
The table at the side of the room farthest from the door 
had a cover of thin oil-cloth decorated with flowers ; most 
of them done in yellow. A tall wooden clock stood against 
the wall at the right of the door as you entered, and its 



6 THE GBATSONS 

slow ticking seemed to make the room cooler. For the 
rest, there was a black rocking-chair with a curved wooden 
seat and uncomfortable round slats in the back ; there were 
some rank-and-£Qe chairs besides, — these were black, with 
yellow stripes; and there was a green settee with three 
rockers beneath and an arm at each end. 

Henry Miller was a square-set young fellow, without a 
spark of romance in him. He had plowed com all day, and 
he would have danced all night had the chance offered, and 
then followed the plow the next day. His sisters were like 
him, plain and of a square type that bespoke a certain sort 
of " Pennsylvania Dutch " ancestry, though the Millers had 
migrated to Illinois, not from Pennsylvania, but from one 
of the old Gterman settlements in the valley of Virginia. 
Ike jumped out of the apple-tree to follow Virginia, the 
youngest of the Millers, into the house; there was between 
him and " Ginnie," as she was called, that sort of adolescent 
attachment, or effervescent reaction, which always appears 
to the parties involved in it the most serious interest in 
the universe, and to everybody else something deliciously 
ridiculous; a sort of burlesque of the follies of people 
more mature. 

This was destined to be one of Rachel's " company even- 
ings"; she had not more than seated the Millers and taken 
the girls' bonnets to a place of security, when there was a 
knock on the door-jamb. It was Mely McCord, who had 
once been a hired help in the Albaugh family. There were 
even in that day wide differences in wealth and education 



TURNING THE BIBLE 7 

in Illinois, but class demarcations there were not. Nothing 
was more natural than that Mely, who had come over from 
Hubbard township to visit some cousin in the neighborhood, 
should visit the Albaughs. Mely McCord was a girl — she 
was always called a girl, though now a little in the past 
tense — with a stoop in the shoulders, and hair that would 
have been better if it had been positively and decoratively 
red. As it was, her head seemed always striving to be red 
without ever attaining to any purity of color. 

Half an hour later, Magill, an Irish bachelor of thirty- 
five, who, being county clerk, was prudently riding through 
the country in order to keep up his^ acquaintance with the 
voters, hitched his horse at the fence outside of the Albaugh 
gate, and came in just as Rachel was bringing a candle. 
Though he had no notion of cumbering himself with a fam- 
ily or with anything else likely to interfere with the freedom 
or pleasure of " an Irish gentleman," Magill was very fond 
of playing at gallantry, and he affected a great liking for 
what he called " f aymale beauty," and plumed himself on 
the impression his own sprucely dressed person and plump 
face — a little overruddy, especially toward the end of the 
nose — might make on the sex. He could never pass Al- 
baugh's without stopping to enjoy a platonic flirtation with 
BacheL George Lockwood arrived at the same time; he 
was a derk in Wooden's store, at the county-seat village of 
Moscow, and he could manage, on his busiest days even, to 
spend half an hour in selling a spool of cotton thread to 
Rachel Albaugh. He had now come five miles in the vain 



8 THE GRAY SONS 

hope of finding her alone. The country beauty appreciated 
the flattery of his long ride, and received his attention with 
a pleasure undisguised. 

George Lockwood's was no platonic sentiment. He 
watched intently every motion of Rachel's arms only half- 
hidden in her open-sleeved dress ; even the rustling of the 
calico of her gown made his pulses flutter. He made a 
shame-faced effort to conceal his agitation ] he even tried to 
devote himself to Mely McCord and the " Miller girls ^ now 
and then; but his eyes followed Rachel's tranquil move- 
ments, as she amused herself with Magill's bald flatteries, 
and Lockwood could n<»t help turning himself from side to 
side in order to keep the ravishing vision in view when 
he was talking to some one else. 

**You had better make the most of your chance, Mr. 
Lockwood," said pert little Virginia Miller, piqued by his 
absent-minded pretense of talking with her. 

" What do you mean t " he asked. 

" Oh, talk to Rachel while you can, for maybe after a 
while you can't ! ^ 

"Why can't It'' 

" She 's glad enough to talk to you now, but just you 
wait till Tom Grayson comes. If he should happen in to- 
night, what do you think would become of you f " 

" Maybe I 'm not so dead in love as you think," he an- 
swered. 

" You t You 're past hope. Your eyes go round the room 
after her like a sunflower twistin' its neck off to see the sun." 



TURNING THE BIBLE 9 

" Pshaw ! ^ said Gteorge. " You know better than that." 
Bat Virginia noted with amosement that his smile of af- 
fected indifference was rather a forced one, and that he was 
^^ swallowing his feelings," as she put it. He took her ad- 
vice as soon as he dared and crossed to where Rachel was 
sitting with the back of her chair against the jamb of the 
mantel-piece. Rachel was smiling a little foolishly at the 
shameless palaver of Magill, who told her that there was a 
ravishing perflction about her f aychers that he 'd niver 
sane surpassed, though he 'd had the exquisite playsure of 
dancing with many of the most beautiful faymales in Eu- 
rope. Rachel, a little sick of un watered sweetness, was 
glad to have George Lockwood interrupt the frank criti- 
cisms of an appreciative connoisseur of loveliness. 

" I hear Tom Grayson outside now," said Mely McCord, 
in a half -whisper to Henry Miller. " George Lockwood 
won't be nowhere when he gits here " ; and Mely's freckled 
face broke into ripples of delight at the evident annoyance 
which Lockwood began to show at hearing Grayson's voice 
on the porch. Tom Grayson was preceded by his sister Bar- 
bara, a rather petite figure, brunette in complexion, with a 
face that was interesting and intelligent, and that had an 
odd look hard to analyze, but which came perhaps, from a 
slight lack of symmetry. As a child, she had been called 
" cunning," in the popular American use of the word when 
applied to children ; that is to say, piquantly interesting ; 
and this characteristic of quaint piquancy of appearance 
she retained, now that she was a young woman of eighteen. 



10 TSM: QRAYS0N8 

Her brother Tom was a middle-sized, well-proportioned 
man, about two years older than she, of a fresh, vivacious 
countenance, and with a be-gone-dull-care look. He had a 
knack of imparting into any company something of his own 
cheerful heedlessness, and for this his society was prized. 
He spoke to everybody right cordially, and shook hands 
with all the company as though they had been his first 
cousins, looking in every face without reserve or suspicion, 
and he was greeted on all hands with a corresponding 
heartiness. But while Tom salut'Cd everybody, his eye 
turned toward Rachel, and he made his way as quickly as 
possible to the farther comer of the room where she was 
standing in conversation with George Lockwood. He ex- 
tended his hand to her with a hearty 

" Well, Bache, how are you t It would cure fever and 
ague to see you " 5 and then turning to Lockwood he said : 
" Hello, George I you out here ! I would n't 'ave thought 
there was any other fellow fool enough to ride five miles and 
back to get a look at Rachel but me." And at that he laughed, 
not a laugh that had any derision in it, or any defiance, only 
the outbreaking of animal spirits that were unchecked by 
foreboding or care. 

" I say, George,'' he went on, " let 's go out and fight a 
duel and have it over. There 's no chance for any of us 
here till Rachel's beaux are thinned out a little. If I should 
get you killed off and out of the way, I suppose I should 
have to take Mr. Magill next." 

" No, Tom, it 's not with me you 'd f oight, me boy. I 've 



TURNING THE BIBLE 11 

sane too many handsome girls to fight over them, though I 
have never sane such transcindent ^ 

" Ah, hush now, Mr. Magill," entreated Rachel. 

" Faymale beauty 's always adorned by modesty. Miss Al- 
baugh. I 'U only add, that whoever Miss Eachel stoops to 
marry " — and MagiU laughed a slow, complacent laugh as he 
put an emphasis on stoops — ^' 1 11 be a thorn in his soide, d' 
yeh mark that ; f er to the day of me death, 1 11 be her most 
devoted admoirer " ; and he made a half -bow at the close of 
his speech, with a quick recovery, which expressed his sense 
of the formidable character of his own personal charms. 

But if MagiU was a connoisseur of beauty he was also a 
politician too prudent to slight any one. He was soon after 
this paying the closest heed to Mely McCord's very spon- 
taneous talk. He had selected Mely in order that he might 
not get a reputation for being " stuck up.'' 

" Tom Grayson a'n't the leas' bit af eerd uh George Lock- 
wood nur nobody else," said Mely rather confidentially to 
Magill, who stood with hands crossed under the tail of his 
blue-gray coat. " He all-ays wuz that away ; a kind 'v a 
high-headed, don't-keer sort uv a f eUer. He 'd better luck 
out, though. Bache 's one uh them skittish kind uh critters 
that don't stan' 'thout hitchin', an' weth a halter knot at 
that. Tom Grayson 's not the fust feller that 's felt shore 
she wuz his 'n an' then found out kind uh suddently 't 'e 
wuz n't so almighty shore arter all. But, lawsee gracious ! 
Tom Grayson a'n't afeerd uv nothin', nohow. Wlien the 
master wuz a-lickin' him wunst, at school, an' gin 1m three 



12 THE GBAYS0N8 

cats, an' then says, says he, ^ You may go now/ Tom, he jes 
lucks at 'im an' says uz peart 's ever you see, says he, 
* Gimme another to make it even numbers.'" 

^'An' how did the master fale about thatf " asked Magill, 
who had been a school-master himself. 

" Wy he jes let him have it good an' tight right around 
his legs. Tom walked off an' never wunst said thank yeh, 
sir. He did n' wear uz good close in them days 's 'e does 
now, by a long shot. His mother's farm 's in the timber, an' 
slow to open ; so many stumps and the like ; an"f 'is uncle 
down 't Moscow had n't a' tuck him up, he 'd 'a' been 
a-plowin' in that air stickey yaller clay 'v Hubbard town- 
ship yit But you know ole Tom Grayson, his father's 
brother, seein' 's Tom wuz named arter him, an' wuz prom- 
isin' like, an' had the gift of the gab, he thought 's how 
Tom mought make 'n all-fired smart lawyer ur doctor, ur 
the like ; an' seein' 's he had n' got no boy to do choores 
about, he takes Tom an' sends him to school three winters, 
an' now I believe he 's put him to readin' law." 

** Tis, I know he went into Blackman's office last May," 
said MagilL 

"Ole Tom Gravson 's never done nothin' fer the old 
woman nur little BarVry, there, an' little Barb'ry 's the 
very flower of the flock, accordin' to my tell," Mely went on. 
" Mrs. Grayson sticks to the ole farm, yeh know, an' rents 
one field to pap on the sheers, an' works the rest uv it by 
hirin'. She sets a mighty sight uv store by Tom. Talks 
about 'im by the hour. She lows he 11 be a-gittin' to Con- 



TURNING THE BIBLE 13 

gress nex' thing. But I d' know'' — and here Mely shook 
her head. ''High nose stamped his toes^" says J. ^'Jes 
look how he 's a-carryin' on with Bache, now." 

" She 's older 'n he is/' said the clerk, knowing that even 
this half unfavorable comment would be a comfort to one 
so far removed from rivalry with her as Mely. 

"Three years ef she 's a day," responded Mely promptly. 
'^ Jest look at that Lockwood. He 's like a colt on the out- 
side of a paster fence, now," — and Mely giggled heartily at 
Lockwood's evident discomfiture. 

In gossip and banter the time went by, until some one 
proposed to " turn the Bible." I do not know where this 
form of sortilege originated; it is probably as old as 
Luther's Bible. One can find it practiced in Gtermany 
to-day as it is in various parts of the United States. 

" Come, Sophronia, you and me will hold the key," said 
Lockwood, who was always quick to seize an advantage. 

These two, therefore, set themselves to tell the fortunes 

of the company. The large iron key to the front door and 

a short, fat little pocket-Bible were the magic implements. 

The ward end of the key was inserted between the leaves 

of the Bible at the first chapter of Buth; the book was 

dosed and a string bound so tightly about it as to hold 

it firmly to the key. The ring end of the key protruded. 

This was carefully balanced on the tips of the forefingers 

of Lockwood and Sophronia Miller, so that the Bible hung 

between and below their hands. A very slight motion, 

unconscious and invisible, of either of the supporting 
2 



14 THE GBATSONS 

fingers would be sufficieut to precipitate the Bible and 
key to the floor. 

"Who can say the verse t^ asked Lockwood. 

" I know it like a book,'' said Virginia Miller. 

" You say it, Ginnie," said her sister ; " but whose turn 
first!'' 

The two amateur sorcerers, with fingers under the key- 
ring, sat face to face in the dim light of the candle, their 
right elbows resting on their knees as they bent forward 
to hold the Bible between them. The others stood about 
with countenances expressing curiosity and amusement. 

" Rachel first," said Henry Miller ; " everybody wants to 
know who in thunderation Bache mil marry, ef she ever 
marries anybody. I don't believe even the Bible can tell 
that. Turn fer Rachel Albaugh, and let 's see how it 
comes out. Say the verse, Ginnie." 

" Letter A,'' said Virginia Miller, solemnly ; and then she 
repeated the words like a witch saying a charm : 

" ' Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from fol- 
lowing after thee : for whither thou goest, I will go ; and 
where thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my 
people, and thy God my God : where thou diest will I die, 
and there wiU I be buried.' " 

The key did not turn. It was manifest, therefore, that 
Rachel would never marry any man whose name began 
with the first letter of the alphabet. The letter B was 
called, and again the solemn charm was repeated ; the 
company resting breathless to the end. The Bible and key 



TURNING THE BIBLE 15 

refused to respond for B, or C, or D, or E, or P. But 
when Ginnie Miller announced " Letter G/' it was with 
a voice that betrayed a consciousness of having reached a 
critical point in her descent of the alphabet ; there was a 
rustle of expectation in the room, and even McGill, stand- 
ing meditatively with his hands behind his back, shifted 
his weight from his left foot to his right so as to have a 
better view of any antics the Bible might take a notion to 
perform. Just as Virginia Miller reached the words '^ and 
where thou diest will I die,'' the key slipped off Sophro- 
nia's Angers first, and the book fell to the floor. 

" G stands for Grayson," said Magill gravely, but he 
pronounced his "G" so nearly like "J" that a titter went 
around the room. 
/ " Dont you know better than to spell Grayson with a J, 
Mr. Magill 1 " asked Bachel. 

Magill did not see the drift of the question, and before 
he could reply, Lockwood, without looking up, broke in 
with : " What are you talking about, all of you 1 It 's not 
the last name, it 's the given name you go by." 

"Oh!" cried Mely McCord, in mild derision, "George 
begins with G. I did n't think of that." 

" Yis," said Magill, reflectively, " that 's a fact ; George 
does begin with jay too." 

" I tell you it 's the last name," said Tom, laughing. 

"I tell you it is n't," said Lockwood, doggedly; but 
Henry Miller, seeing a chance for disagreeable words, made 
haste to say : " Come, boys, it's the good-natured one that '11 



16 THE GRAY SONS 

win. Hang up the Bible once more and let 's see if it 11 
drop for Lockwood when it gets to L, or for Tom when we 
come to T. I don't more than half believe in the thing. It 
never will turn for me on anything but Q, and they a'n't no 
girl with Q to her name this side of Jericho except Queen 
Brooks, an' she lives thirteen miles away an' 's engaged to 
another feller, and I would n't look at her twiste if she wuz 
n't, nur she 't me like 's not. Come, Ginnie, gee-up your 
oxen. Let 's have H." 

The Bible refused to turn at H. 

" Rachel won't marry you, Henry Miller," said the county 
clerk. 

"No," said Henry, " Rache an' me 's always been flrst-rate 
friends, but she knows me too well to fall in love with me, 
an' I 'm the only feller in this end of the county that 's 
never made a fool of myself over Rachel." 

Neither would the Bible turn at I, J, or K But at L it 
turned. 

" Of course it 11 turn at L, when Lockwood 's got hold of 
the key," said Tom with another laugh. " That 's what he 
took hold for." 

" That 's the same as saying I don't play fair," said Lock- 
wood, with irritation. 

" Fair and square a'n't just your way, Gteorge. But there 
's no use being cross about it." 

" Come, boys, if you 're going to quarrel over the Bible 
you can't have it," said Rachel, who loved tranquillity. "As 
for me, I 'm going to marry whoever I please, and I won't 



TURNING THE BIBLE 



17 



get married till I please, Bible or no Bible" ] and slie nntied 
the stringy put the rusty key in the door, and laid the plump 
little book in its old place on the mantel-piece, until it 
should be wanted again for religious disputation or fortune- 
telling. 

Grayson went rattling on with cheerful and good-natured 
nonsense, but George Lockwood, pushed into the shade by 
Tom's ready talk and by Rachel's apparent preference for 
him, was not in a very good humor, and departed early in 
company with MagilL After all the rest had gone, Barbara 
Grayson had to remind Tom more than once of the lateness 
of the hour, for nine o'clock was late in that day. 

" Send him home, Rachel," she said, " at half-past nine j 
he 11 never go while you look good-natured." Then, taking 
her brother by the arm, Barbara led him to the gate. 
Rachel followed, almost as reluctant to close the evening as 
Tom himself. 



2* 



vmtrosa and Losma 



HE next Friday evening Grayson and Lock- 

T"' ^^ wood were again brought together j this time 
^JS in the miBcellaneous store of Wooden & Sny- 
j der, in which George Lockwood was the only 
clerk. Here after closing-time the yonng men of the Tillage 
were accustomed to gratify their gregariona propensities ; 
this was a dnb-room, where, amid characteriatio odors of 
brown sugar, plug tobacco, new calico, vinegar, whisky, 
molasses, and the dressed leather of boots and shoes, 
social intercourse was carried on by a group seated on 
the top of nail-kegs, the protruding ends of shoe-boxes, 
and the counters that stretched around three sides of the 
room. Here were related again all those stock anecdotes 
which have come down from an antiquity inconceivably 
remote, but which in every village are yet told as having 
happened three or four miles away, and three or four years 
ago, to the intimate friend of the narrator's uncle. The 
frequency of such assemblies takes off something of their 
zest ; where everybody knows all his neighbor's history and 



WINNING AND LOSING 19 

has heard everybody else's favorite story, a condition of 
mental equilibrium ensues, and there is no exchange of 
electricities. The new-comer, or the man who has been 
away, is a heaven-send in a village ) he stirs its stagnant 
intellect as a fresh breeze, and is for the time the hero of 
every congregation of idlers. 

Such a man on this evening was Dave Sovine, the son of 
a settler from one of the Channel Islands. Four years ago, 
when but sixteen years old, Dave had unluckily waked up 
one summer morning at daybreak. Looking out of the lit- 
tle window in the end of the loft of his father's house, he 
had contemplated with disgust a large field of Indian com 
to be " plowed out" that day under a June sun. So repul- 
sive to his nature was the landscape of young maize and 
the prospect of toil, that he dressed himself, tied up his 
spare clothes in a handkerchief, and, taking his boots in his 
hand, descended noiselessly the stairway which was in the 
outside porch of the house. Once on the ground, he drew 
on his boots and got away toward the Wabash, where he 
shipped as cook on a flat-boat bound for New Orleans. No 
pursuit or inquiry was made by his family, and the neigh- 
bors suspected that his departure was not a source of regret. 
At Shawneetown the flat-boat was suddenly left without a 
cook. Dave had been sent up in the town with a little 
money to lay in supplies of coffee and sugar; instead of 
coming back, he surreptitiously shipped as cabin-boy on the 
steamboat Queen of the West, which was just leaving the 
landing, bound also for the " lower country." Sovine had 



20 THE GBATSOKS 

afterward been in the Gulf, he had had adventures in Mex- 
ico, and he had contrived to pick up whatever of evil was 
to be learned in every place he visited. He had now come 
home ostensibly " to see the folks,'' but really to gratify his 
vanity in astonishing his old acquaintances by an admira- 
ble proficiency in deviltry. His tales of adventure were 
strange and exciting, and not likely to shrink in the telling. 
The youth of Moscow listened with open-mouthed admira- 
tion to one who, though born in their village, had seen 
so much of the world and broken all of the command- 
ments. For his skill at cards they soon had not only ad- 
miration but dread. He had emptied the pockets of his 
companions by a kind of prestidigitation quite incompre- 
hensible to them. He seemed to play fairly, but there was 
not a loafer in Moscow who had not become timid about 
playing with Dave; the long run of luck was ever on his 
side. It was much more amusing to his companions to 
hear him, with ugly winks and the complacent airs of a man 
who feels sure that he had cut his eyeteeth, tell how he had 
plucked others in gambling than to furnish him with new 
laurels at their own expense. 

On this particular evening Dave Sovine lounged on one 
of the counters, with a stack of unbleached "domestic'' 
cloth for a bolster, while his bright patent-leather shoes 
were posed so as to be in plain view. Thus comfortably 
fixed, he bantered the now wary and rather impecunious 
"boys" for a game of poker, euchre, seven-up, or anything 
to pass away the time. George Lockwood, as representing 



WINNING Aim LOSING 21 

the proprietors of the store, sat on a ledge below the shelves 
with his feet braced on a box under the counter. He was 
still smarting from his discomflture with Rachel Albaugh, 
and he was also desirous of investigating Dave Sovine's 
play without risking his own "flps'' and "bits'' in the 
game. So, after revolving the matter in his mind as he 
did every matter, he said to Dave, with a half-sinister 
smile: 

" Tom Grayson 's upstairs in Blackman's office. Maybe 
you might get up a game with him. He plays a stiff hand, 
and he a'n't afraid of the Ole Boy at cards, or anything 
else, for that matter." 

" You call him down," said Dave, winking his eye signifi- 
cantly, and involuntarily disclosing a vein of exultant devil- 
try which made the cool-blooded Lockwood recoil a little ; 
however, Gteorge felt that it would be a satisfaction to see 
Tom's pride reduced. 

Lockwood got down off the ledge in a sluggish way, and 
walked around the end of the counter to the stove-pipe 
which ran from the box-stove in the store up through the 
office above. 

" I say, Tom ! " he called. 

" Whatt" came out of the pipe. 

"Dave Sovine says he can beat you at any game you 
choose. Come down and try him." 

Grayson was bending over a law-book with only a tallow 
candle for light. Studying the law of common carriers 
waS| in his opinion, dull business for a fellow with good 



22 THE GRAYSOXS 

red blood in his veins. He heard the mnrmnr of conversa- 
tion below, and for the last half -hour he had longed to put 
the book up beside its sheepskin companions on the shelves 
and join the company in the store. This banter decided him. 

" 1 11 come down a little minute and try just three games 
and no more," he said. Then he closed the book with a 
thump and went down the outside stairway, which was the 
only means of egress from the law-office, and was let into 
the back door of the store by George Lockwood. He got 
an empty soap-box and set it facing the nail-keg on which 
Dave Sovine had placed himself for the encounter. A 
half -barrel with a board on top was put between the play- 
ers, and served for table on which to deal and throw the 
cards; the candle rested on the rusty box-stove which 
stood, winter and summer, midway between the counters. 
Lockwood snuffed the candle and then, with an affectation 
of overlistlessness, placed himself behind Sovine, so as to 
command a view of his cards and of all his motions. 

Tom had prudence enough to insist on playing for small 
stakes of a twelve-and-a-half -cent bit at a game; — his 
purse was not heavy enough for him to venture greater 
ones. At first the larger number of games fell to Gray- 
son, and his winnings were considerable to one who had 
never had more than money enough for his bare necessities. 
He naturally forgot all about the law of common carriers 
and the limit of three games he had prescribed himself. 

Dave cursed his infernal luck, as he called it, and when 
the twelfth round left Tom about a dollar ahead, he gave 



WINNING AND LOSING 23 

the cards a ^'Virginia i)oke'' whenever it came his tarn to 
cut them ; that is to say, he pushed one card out of the 
middle of the pack, and put it at the back. By this means 
Dave proposed to '' change the luck,'' as he said; but 
George Lockwood, who looked over Dave's shoulder, was 
not for a minute deceived by this manoeuvre. He knew 
that this affectation of a superstition about luck and the 
efficiency of poking the cards was only a blind to cover 
from inexpert eyes the real sleight by which Dave, when 
he chose, could deal himself strong hands. Even the Vir- 
ginia poke did not immediately bring a change, and when 
Tom had won a dozen games more than Dave, and so was 
a dollar and a half ahead, and had got his pulses well 
warmed up, Dave manifested great vexation, and asked 
Grayson to increase the stakes to half a dollar, so as to 
give him a chance to recover some of his money before it 
was time to quit. Tom consented to this, and the proportions 
of winnings passed to the other side of the board. Dave 
won sometimes two games in three, sometimes three in five, 
and Tom soon found a serious inroad made in the small 
fond of thirteen dollars which he had earned by odd jobs 
writing and even by harder and homelier work. This money 
had been hoarded toward a new suit of clothes. He began 
to breathe hard; he put up his hard-earned half-dollars 
with a trembling hand, and he saw them pass into Sovine's 
^ pocket with a bitter regret ; he took his few winnings with 
eagerness. Every lost half-dollar represented a day's 
work| and after every loss he resolved to venture but one 



24 THE GBATSONS 

more, if the luck did not change. But how could he endure 
to quit defeated f He saw before him weeks of regret and 
self-reproach ; he felt a desperate necessity for recovering 
his ground. As the loss account mounted, his lips grew dry^ 
the veins in his forehead visibly swelled, and the perspira- 
tion trickled from his face. He tried to hide his agitation 
under an affectation of indifference and amusement, but 
when he essayed to speak careless words for a disguise, his 
voice was husky and unsteady, and he kept swallowing, 
with an effort as though something in his throat threatened 
him with suffocation. Dave noted these signs of distress 
in his adversary with a sort of luxurious pleasure ; he had 
in him the instincts of a panther, and the suffering inflicted 
on another gave an additional relish to his victory. 

Lockwood watched the play with a sharp curiosity, hop- 
ing to penetrate the secret of Sovine's skilL He felt, also, 
a certain regret, for he had not expected to see Tom quite 
so severely punished. At length Tom's last dollar was 
reached ; with a flushed face, he held the coin in his trem- 
bling hand for a moment, and then he said bravely : " It 
might as well go with the rest, if I lose this time," and he 
laid it down as a single stake, hoping that luck would favor 
him. 

When Dave had pocketed this he leaned back and smiled 
with that sort of ruthless content that a beast of prey feels 
when he licks his chops after having enjoyed a meal from 
his lawful prey. 

Tom's losses were relatively great ; it was a kind of small 
ruin that had suddenly overtaken him. A month of writ- 



WINNING AND LOSING 25 

ing, if he had it to do, would not have replaced the money, 
nor was his a natare that conld easily brook defeat. The 
very courage and self-reliance that would have stood him in 
admirable stead in another kind of difficulty, and that in 
other circumstances would have been accounted a virtue, 
were a snare to him now. 

" Look here, Dave,'' he said, with a voice choked by mor- 
tification, " give me a chance to win a little of that back," 
and he laid his pocket-knife on the table. 

" Tom, you 'd better quit,'' said three or four voices at 
once. But Dave rather eagerly laid a half-dollar by Tom's 
knife and won the knife. He liked this chance to give a 
certain completeness to the job. Then Tom laid out his 
silk handkerchief, which he also lost — for the games all 
went one way now. 

" Come, Tom, hold on now," said the chorus. 

But Tom was in the torment of perdition. He glared at 
those who advised him to desist. Then, in a mixture of 
stupor and desperation, he placed his hat on the board 
against a dollar and lost that ; then he stripped the coat 
from his back and lost it, and at last his boots went the 
same way. When these were gone, having nothing further 
to wager without consigning himself to aboriginal naked- 
ness, he sat in a kind of daze, his eyes looking swollen and 
bloodshot with excitement. 

" Come, Dave,'^ said Lockwood, " give him back his clothes. 
You've won enough without taking the clothes off his back." 

" That 's all you know about it," said Dave, who noted 

every token of Tom's suflfering as an additional element 
3 



26 THE GEAYSONS 

in his triumph. " That may be your Illinois way, but 
that is n't the way we play in New Orieans. Winnings 
is winnings where I learnt the game.'^ And he proceeded 
to lay Tom's things in a neat pile convenient for transpor- 
tation. 

" Aw I come now, Dave," said one and another, " 't a'n't 
the fair thing to send a fellow home to his folks barefooted 
and in his shirt-sleeves." 

But Dave smiled in supercilious contempt at this provin- 
cial view of things, and cited the usages of the superior 
circles to which he had gained admission. 

Lockwood at length lent Tom the money to redeem his 
garments, and the necessity which obliged him to borrow 
from the man who had got him into the scrape was the bit- 
terest of all the bitter elements in Tom's defeat. He went 
out into the fresh air and walked home mechanically. His 
dashing, headlong ways had already partly alienated his 
uncle, and the only hope of Tom's retaining his assistance 
long enough to complete his law studies lay in the chance 
that his relative might fail to hear of this last escapade. It 
was clear to Tom without much canvassing of the question 
that he could not borrow from him the money to replace 
what he had gotten from Lockwood to redeem his clothes. 
He entered the garden by the back gate, climbed up to the 
roof of the wood-shed by means of a partition fence, and 
thence managed to pull himself into the window of his 
own chamber as stealthily as possible, that his uncle's fam- 
ily might not know that he had come home at half-past 
twelve. He stood a long while in the breeze at the open 



WINNING AND LOSING 27 

window watching the shadows of clouds drift over the 
moonlit prairie, which stretched away like a shoreless sea 
from the back of his uncle's house. He could not endure 
to bring his thoughts all at once to bear on his affairs ; he 
stood there uneasily and watched these flitting black shad- 
ows come and go, and he gnashed his teeth with vexation 
whenever a full sense of his present misery and his future 
perplexities drifted over him. 

He shut the window and went to bed at last, and by the 
time daylight arrived he had turned over every conceivable 
expedient. There was nothing for him but to accept the 
most disagreeable of all of them. He would have to draw 
on the slender purse of his mother and Barbara, for Lock- 
wood's was a debt that might not be put off, and he could 
see no present means of earning money. He purposed to 
make some excuse to go home again on Saturday. It 
would be dreadful to meet Barbara's reproaches, and to see 
his mother's troubled face. How often he had planned to 
be the support of these two, but he seemed doomed to be 
only a burden ; he had dreamed of being a source of pride 
to them, but again and again he had brought them morti- 
fication. Had he been less generous or more callous he 
would not have minded it so much. But as it was, his 
intolerable misery drove him to castle-building. He com- 
forted himself with the reflection that he could make it all 
right with the folks at home when once he should get into 
practice. Barbara should have an easier time then. How 
often had he drawn drafts on the imaginary future for con- 
solation I 



in 

PAYING TUB FIDDLEB 



\x ^/M^^ ^^^ °''' ™^*'' °*^ harm, Tommy," said Mrs. 

my^M Grayson, "I know you did u't." She was 

ini I mW fambling iu the drawer of a clothes-press, 
built by the side of the chimney in the sitting- 
room of the Grayson farm-house in Hubbard township. 
She kept her money in this drawer concealed ander a 
collection of miscellaneous articles. 

Tom sat looking out of the window. Ever since his gam- 
bling scrape he had imagined his mother's plaintive voice 
excusing him iu this way. It was not the first time that 
he had had to be pidled out of disasters produced by bis 
own rashness, and It seemed such an uiimaoly thing for 
him to come home with his troubles; but he must pay 
Lockwood quickly, lest any imprudent word of that not 
very friendly friend should reach his uncle's ears. Nothing 
but the fear of bringing on them greater evil could have 
scourged him into facing his mother and sister with the 
story of his gambling. Once in their presence, his wretched 
face had made it evident that he was in one of those tight 



PAYING THE FIDDLER 29 

places which were ever recurring in his life. He made a 
clean breast of it ; your dashing dare-devil fellow has less 
temptation to lie than the rest of us. And now he had 
told it ally — he made it a sort of atonement to keep back 
nothing, — and he sat there looking out of the window at 
the steady dropping of a summer rain which had pelted 
him ever since he had set out from Moscow. He looked 
into the rain and listened to the quivering voice of his dis- 
appointed mother as she rummaged her drawer to take 
enough to meet his debt from the doUars accumulated by 
her own and Barbara's toil and management — dollars put 
by as a sinking fund to clear the farm of debt. But most 
of all he dreaded the time when Barbara should speak. 
She sat at the other window of the room with her face bent 
down over her sewing, which was pinned to her dress at 
the knee. She had listened to his story, but she had not 
uttered a word, and her silence filled him with foreboding. 
Tom watched the flock of bedraggled and down-hearted 
chickens creeping about under the eaves of the porch to 
escape the rain, and wondered whether it would not be bet- 
ter to kill himself to get rid of himself. His mother fum- 
bled long and irresolutely in the drawer, looking up to 
talk every now and then, mostly in order to delay as long 
as possible the painful parting with her savings. 

"I know you did n't mean no harm. Tommy; I know 
you did n't ; but it 's awful hard on BarVry an' me, partin' 
with this money. Dave Sovine 's a wicked wretch to bring 

such trouble on two women like us, that 's had such a 
3* 



30 THE GRAY SONS 

hard time to git on, an' nobody left to work the place. Out 
uv six children, you an' BarVry 's all that 's left alive. It ^s 
hard on a woman to be left without her husband, an' all 
but the two youngest children dead.'' 

Here she stopped ransacking the drawer to wipe her eyes. 
She gave way to her grief the more easily because she still 
lacked resolution to devote her earnings to filling up the 
gap made by Tom's prodigality. And in every trouble her 
mind reverted involuntarily to the greater tribulations of 
her life ; all rills of disappointment and all rivers of grief 
led down to this great sea of sorrow. 

" You 're the only two 't 's left, you two. Ef you 'd just keep 
out uv bad comp'ny. Tommy. But," she said, recovering her- 
self, " I know you 're f eelin' awful bad, an' you 're a good boy 
only you 're so keerless an' ventersome. You did n't mean 
no harm, an' you won't do it no more, I know you won't." 

By this time Mrs. Grayson's trembling hands, on whose 
hardened palms and slightly distorted fingers one might 
have read the history of a lifetime of work and hardship, 
had drawn out a cotton handkerchief in which were tied up 
thirty great round cumbersome Spanish and Mexican dollars, 
with some smaDer silver. This she took to a table, where 
she proceeded slowly to count out for Tom the exact amount 
he had borrowed to redeem his clothes, — not a fi'-penny 
bit more did she spare him. 

At this point Barbara began to speak. She raised her 
face from her work and drew her dark eyes to a sharp 
focus, as she always did when she was much in earnest. 



PAYING THE FIDDLER 31 

'^ It don't matter much about us, Tom," she said, despond- 
ently. " Women are made to give up for men, I suppose. 
I 've made up my mind already to quit the school over at 
Timber Creek, though I do hate to." 

" Yes," said her mother, " an' it 's too bad, f er you did 
like that new-fangled study of algebray, though I can't see 
the good of it." 

" I don't want to hurt your feelings," Barbara went on, 
" but maybe it 11 do you good, Tom, to remember that I Ve 
got to give up the school, and it 's my very last chance, and 
I 've got to spin and knit enough this winter to make up the 
money you 've thrown away in one night. You would n't 
make us trouble a-purpose for anything, — I know that. 
And, any way, we don't care much about ourselves ; it don't 
matter about us. But we do care about you. What '11 
happen if you go on in this heels-over-head way ? Uncle 
Tom 11 never stand it, you know, and your only chance 'U 
be gone. That 's what 11 hurt us all 'round — to give up 
all for you, and then you make a mess of it — in spite of 
all we 've done." 

" You 're awful hard on me. Barb," said Tom, writhing a 
little in his chair. " I wish I 'd made an end of myself, as 
I thought of doing, when I was done playing that night." 

"There you are again," said Barbara, "without ever 
stopping to think. I suppose you think it would have made 
mother and me feel better about it, for you to kill your- 
self 1" 

" Don't be so cuttin' with your tongue, Barb'ry," said her 



32 THE 0RAYS0N8 

mother, " we can stand it, and poor Tom did n't mean to 
do it" 

" Pshaw 1 ^ said Barbara, giving herself a shake of impa- 
tience, " what a baby excuse that is for a grown-up man like 
Tom! Tom's no fool if he would only think; but he 11 cer- 
tainly spoil everything before he comes to his senses, and 
then we 11 all be here in the mud together ; — the family 11 
be disgraced, and there 'U be no chance of Tom's getting 
on. What makes me mad is that Tom 11 sit there and let 
you excuse him by saying that he did n't mean any harm, 
and then he '11 be just as gay as ever by day after to-mor- 
row, and just as ready to run into some new scrape." 

" Go on, Barb, that 's hitting the sore spot," said Tom, 
leaning his head on his hand. " Maybe if you knew all I 
've gone through, you 'd let up a little." Tom thought of 
telling her of the good resolutions he had made, but he had 
done that on other occasions like this, and he knew that his 
resolutions were by this time at a heavy discount in the 
home market. He would liked to have told Barbara how he 
intended to make it all up to them whenever he should get 
into a lucrative practice, but he dreaded to expose his 
cherished dreams to the nipping frost of her deadly com- 
mon sense. 

He looked about for a change of subject. 

" Where 's Bob McCord ?" he asked. 

" It was a rainy day, and he 's gone off to the grocery, I 
guess," said Mrs. Grayson. "I 'm afeerd he won't come 
home in time to cut us wood to do over Sunday." 



PAYING THE FIDDLER 



33 



Tom had intended to ride back to Moscow and pay his 
debt this very evening. But here was a chance to show 
some little gratitude — a chance to make a beginning of 
amendment. He did not want to stay at home, where the 
faces of his mother and Barbara and the pinching economy 
of the household arrangements would reproach him, but for 
this very reason he would remain until the next day; it 
would be a sort of i>enance, and any self-imposed suffering 
was a relief. The main use that men make of penitence 
and the wearing of sackcloth is to restore the balance of 
their complacency. Tom announced his intention to see to 
the Sunday wood himself ; putting his uncle's horse in the 
stable, he went manfully to chopping wood in the rain and 
attending to everything else that would serve to make his 
mother and sister more comfortable. 



IV 



lockwood's plan 




EORGE LOCKWOOD, being only mUdly mali- 
ciousy felt something akin to compensation at 
having procured for Tom so severe a loss. 
But he was before all things a man secretive 
and calculating; the first thing he did with any circum- 
stance was to take it into his intellectual backroom, where 
he spent most of his time, and demand what advantage 
it could give to Gteorge Lockwood. When ho had let all 
the boys out of the store at a quarter past twelve, he 
locked and barred the door. Then he put away the boxes 
and all other traces of the company, and carried his tallow 
candle into his rag-carpeted bedroom, which opened from 
the rear of the store and shared the complicated and 
characteristic odors of the shop with a dank smell of its 
own ; this last came from a habit Lockwood had when he 
sprinkled the floor of the store, preparatory to sweeping it, 
of extending the watering process to the rag-carpet of the 
bedroom. His mind gave only a passing thought of mild 
exultation, mingled with an equally mild regret, to poor 

84 



LOCKWOOjyS PLAN 35 

Tom Grayson's misfortune. He was already inquiring 
how he might, without his hand appearing in the matter, 
use the occurrence for his own benefit. Tom had had pres- 
ence of mind enough left to beg the whole party in the 
store to say nothing about the affair ; but notwithstanding 
the obligation which the set felt to protect one another from 
the old fogies of their families, George Lockwood thought 
the matter would probably get out He was not the kind of 
a man to make any bones about letting it out, if he could 
thereby gain any advantage. The one feeling in his tepid 
nature that had ever attained sufficient intensity to keep 
him awake at night was his passion for Rachel Albaugh ; 
and his passion was quite outside of any interest he might 
have in Rachel's reversionary certainty of the one-half of 
John Albaugh's lands. This, too, he had calculated, but as 
a subordinate consideration. 

He reflected that Rachel might come to town next Satur- 
day, which was the general trading-day of the country 
people. If she should come, she would be sure to buy 
something of him. But how could he tell her of Tom's un- 
lucky gambling f To do so directly would be in opposition 
to all the habits of his prudent nature. Nor could he be- 
think him of a ruse that might excuse an indirect allusion 
to it -J and he went to sleep at length without finding a solu- 
tion of his question. 

But chance favored him, for with the Saturday came rain, 
and Rachel regretfully gave over a proposed visit to the 
village. But as some of the things wanted were quite in- 



36 THE GRAY SONS 

dispensable, Ike Albaugh was sent to Moscow, and he came 
into Wooden & Snyder's store about 4 o'clock in the after- 
noon. Gteorge Lockwood greeted him cordially, and weighed 
out at his request three pounds of ten-penny nails to finish 
the new corn-crib, a half-pound of cut tobacco to replenish 
the senior Albaugh's pipe from time to time, a dollar's ' 
worth of sugar, and a quarter of a pound of Epsom salts, — 
these last two for general use. He also measured off five 
yards of blue cotton drilling, six feet of half -inch rope for 
a halter, and two yards of inch- wide ribbon to match a 
sample sent by RacheL Then he filled one of the Albaugh 
jugs with molasses and another with whisky, which last was 
indispensable in the hay harvest. These articles were 
charged to John Albaugh's account ; he was credited at the 
same time with the ten pounds of fresh butter that Isaac 
had brought. George Lockwood also wrapped up a paper 
of " candy kisses,'' as they were called, which he charged 
Ike to give to Rachel from him, but which he forgot to 
enter to his own account on the day-book. 

" By the way, Ike," he said, " did you know that Dave 
Sovine got back last week t " 

" Yes," said Ike ; " I hear the Sovine folks made a turri- 
ble hullabaloo over the returned prodigal, — killed the fatted 
calf, and all that." 

"A tough prodigal Ae is ! " said Lockwood, with a gentle 
smile of indifference. "You 'd better look out for him." 

"Met Why?" asked Ike. "He never had any grudge 
ag'inst me, as I know of." 



LOCKWOOiyS PLAN 37 

"No,'' said Lockwood, laughing, "not that. But he 's 
cleaned all the money out of all the boys about town, and 
he 11 be going after you country fellows next, I guess. He 
's the darnedest hand with cards ! " 

" WeD, he won't git a-holt of we," said Ike, with boyish 
exultation. "I don't hardly more 'n know the ace fum 
the jack. I never played but on'y just oncej two or three 
games weth one of the harvest hands, four years ago. He 
was showin' me how, you know, one Sunday in the big 
haymow, an' jus' as I got somethin' 't he called high low 
jack, the old man took 't into his head to come up the lad- 
der to see what was goin' on. You know father's folks was 
Dunkers, an' he don't believe in cards. I got high low jack 
that time, an' I won't fergit it the longest day I live." Ike 
grinned a little ruefully at the recollection. " Could n' 
draw on my roundabout fer a week without somebody 
helpin' me, I was so awful sore betwixt the shoulders. 
Not any more fer me, thank you ! " 

"It 'u'd be good for some other young fellows I know, if 

they 'd had some of the same liniment," said Lockwood, 

beginning to see his way clear, and speaking in a languid 

tone with his teeth half closed. " Blam'd 'f I did n't see 

Bovine, a-settin' right there on that kag of sixp'ny nails 

the other night, win all a fellow's money, and then his 

handkerchief and his knife. The fellow — you know him 

well — got so excited that he put up his hat and his coat and 

his boots, an' Dave took 'em all. He 's got some cheatin' trick 

ur 'nother, but I stood right over 'im an' I can't quite make 
4 



38 THE OBATSOKS 

it out yet. I tried to coax 'im to give back the hat an' coat 
an' boots ; but no, sir, he 's a regular black-leg. Ho would 
n't give up a thing till I lent the other fellow as much 
money as he 'd staked ag'inst them." 

" Who wuz the other fellow 1 " asked Ike Albaugh, with 
lively curiosity. 

"Oh! I promised not to tell"j but as Lockwood said 
this he made an upward motion with his pointed thumb, 
and turned his eyes towards the office overhead. 

" Wy, not Tom 1 " asked Ike, in an excited whisper. 

" Don't you say anything about it," said G^eorge, looking 
serious. " He don't want his uncle's folks to know any- 
thing about it. And besides, I have n't mentioned any 
name, you know"; and he fell into a playful little titter 
between his closed teeth, as he shook his head secretively, 
and turned away to attend to a woman who, in spite of the 
rain, had brought on horseback a large " feed-basket " full of 
eggs, and three pairs of blue stockings of her own knitting, 
which she wished to exchange for a calico dress-pattern 
and some other things. 

But Lockwood turned to call after the departing youth : 
"You won't mention that to anybody, will you, Iket" 

" To V shore not," said Ike, as he went out of the door 
thinking how much it would interest Rachel. 

Ike Albaugh was too young and too light-hearted to be 
troubled with forebodings. Rachel might marry anybody 
she pleased "fr ah of him." It was her business, and she 
was of age, he reflected, and he was n't her "gardeen." 



LOCKWOOiyS FLAX 39 

At most, if it belonged to anybody to interfere, " it was the 
ole man's lookout." But the story of Tom Grayson's losing 
all his money, and even part of his clothes, was something 
interesting to tell, and it did not often happen to the young 
man to have the first of a bit of news. A farm-house on 
the edge of an unsettled prairie is a dull place, where all 
things have a monotonous, diurnal revolution and a larger 
annual repetition ; any event with a parabolic or hyperbolic 
orbit which intrudes into this system is a godsend ; even 
the most transient shooting-star of gossip is a relief. But 
this would be no momentary meteor, and Isaac saw in the 
newly acquired information something to "tease Bache 
with,'' and teasing one's sister is always lawful sport. He 
owed her some good-natured grudges ; here was one chance 
to be even with her. 

Ike got home at half-past six, and Rachel had to spread 
for him a cold supper, chiefly of corn-bread and milk. He 
gave her the ribbon and the little package of square candy 
kisses from Lockwood. Rachel sat down at the table 
opposite her hungry brother, and, after giving him a part 
of the sweets, she amused herself with unfolding the papers 
that inclosed each little square of candy and reading the 
couplets of honeyed doggerel wrapped within. 

" Did you hear anything of Tom 1 " Rachel asked. 

"Yes." 

"What was it!" 

" Oh 1 I promised not to say anything about if 

" You need n't be afraid of making me jealous,^ said the 



40 THE ORAY80N8 

sister, with a good-natured, half -defiant setting of her head 
ou one side. 

'' Jealous f No, it 's not anything like that. Ton ain't 
good at guessin', Sis ; girls never air.^ 

" Not even Ginnie Miller,'' said Rachel. She usually met 
Ike's hackneyed allusions to the inferiority of girls by some 
word about Ginnie. It was plain her brother was in a 
teasing mood, and that her baffled curiosity would not find 
satisfaction by coaxing. She knew well enough that Ike 
was not such a fool as to keep an interesting secret long 
enough for it to grow stale and unmarketable on his hands. 

" Let it go, — I don't care," she said, as she got up and 
moved about the kitchen. 

" You would, if you knew,'' said Ike. 

" But I don't, and so there 's an end of it " ; and she began 
to hum a sentimental song of the languishing sort so much 
in vogue in that day. The melancholy refrain, which formed 
the greater part of this one, ran : 

^'Long, long ago, long ago.'' 

It is one of the paradoxes of human nature that young 
women with all the world before them delight in singing 
retrospective melodies about an auld-lang-syne concerning 
which, in the very nature of the case, they cannot well 
know anything, but in regard to which they seem to enter- 
tain sentiments so distressful. 

'^ It was n't so very long ago, nuther," said Ike, whose 
dialect was always intensified when there were harvest 
hands on the place. 



LOCKWOOiyS PLAN 41 

" What was n't ? " said Rachel, with her back to him. 

" Why, Tom's scrape, of course." 

" Was it a very bad one ? Did he get took up t " Rachel's 
face was still averted, but Ike noted with pleasure that her 
voice showed a keen interest in his news. 

'^ Oh, no, 't 's not him that ought to be took up ; it 's 
Dave Sovine." 

Rachel cleared her throat and waited a few seconds be- 
fore speaking again. 

"Did Dave hurt Tom much!" she asked, groping after 
the facts among the various conjectures that suggested 
themselves. 

" Well, yes," said Ike, with a broad grin of delight at his 
sister's wide guessing ; but by this time he was pretty well 
exhausted by the strain put upon his feeble secretiveness. 
" Yes, hurt him ? I sh'd say so ! " he went on. " Hurts like 
blazes to have a black-leg like Dave win all yer money an' 
yer knife, ^an yer hankercher, an' yer hat an^ coat an' boots 
in the bargain. But you mus' n't say anything about it, 
Sis. It 's a dead secret." 

" Who told you ? " 

" Nobody," said Ike, feeling some compunction that he 
had gone so far. " I just heard it." 

" Who 'd you hear it from ? " 

"George Lockwood kind uh let ^ out without 'xactly 
sayin' 't wuz Tom. But he did n't deny it uniz Tom." 

Having thus relieved himself from the uncomfortable 

pressure of his secret, Ike got up and went out whistling, 
4» 



42 



THE 0BATS0X8 



leaving Rachel to think the matter over. It was not the 
moral aspect of the question that presented itself to her. 
K Tom had beaten Sovine she would not have cared. It 
was Tom's cleverness as weU as his buoyant spirit that had 
touched her, and now her hero had played the fooL She 
had the wariness of one who had known many lovers ; her 
wit was not prof ound, and she saw rather than contrived 
the course most natural to one of her prudent and ease-lov- 
ing temperament ; she would hold Tom in check, and post- 
pone the disagreeable necessity for final decision. 



V 




GST to Tom's foreboding aboat hiB tmcle was 
V^ the dread of the effect of his bad conduct on 

MJ RacheL On that rainy Saturday afternoon he 

I thought much abontthe possibility of making 
shipwreck with Rachel ; and this led him to remember with 
a snspicion, foreign to his temper, the part that Lockwood 
had taken in his disgrace. By degrees he transferred much 
of his indignation from Sovine to George Lockwood. He 
resolved to see Rachel on his way back to town, and if 
possible by a frank confession to her to forestall and 
brei^ the force of any reports that might get abroad. 
The bold eonrse was always the easiest to one of so mnch 
propolsiveness. He remembered that there was a " sing- 
in'," as it was called in the country, held every Sunday 
afternoon in the Timber Creek school-house, half-way be- 
tween his mother's house and the Albangh's. This week- 
ly singing-school was attended by most of the young 
people of the neighborhood, and by Rachel Albaugh 
among the rest Tom planned to stop, as though by 



44 THE GBAY80N8 

chance, at the gathering and ride home with the ever 
adorable Rachel. 

When Tom reached the school-house, Bryant, the peri- 
patetic teacher of vocal music, was standing in front of his 
class and leading them by beating time with his rawhide 
riding-whip. Esteeming himself a leader in the musical 
world, he was not restricted to the methods used by musi- 
cians of greater renown. It is easy for ignorance to make 
innovation, — the America of a half century ago was seriously 
thinking of revising everything except the moral law. 
While Noah Webster in Connecticut was proposing single- 
handed to work over the English tong^i^ so as to render it 
suitable to the wants of a self-complacent young nation, 
other reformers as far west as St. Louis were engaged in 
improving the world's system of musical notation. Of the 
new method Bryant was an ardent propagator; he made 
much of the fact that he was a musical new light, and 
taught the " square notes,'' a system in which the relative 
pitch was not only indicated by the position of the notes 
upon the clef, but also by their characteristic shapes. Any 
simpleton could here tell " do'' from " me'' at sight. 

In the ^* Missouri Harmonist " the lines and spaces were 
decorated with quavers and semi-quavers whose heads were 
circles, squares, and triangles; Old Hundred becoming a 
solemn procession of one-legged and no-legged geometric 
figures. But Bryant understood his business too well to 
confine his Sunday classes of young people to Sunday 
tunes. When Tom, after tjdng his horse to the inner cor- 



THE MITTEN 45 

ner of a rail-fencey pushed back the school-house door, 
creaking on its wooden hinges, the four divisions of the 
class were chasing one another through a "round," the 
words of which ran : 

'* Now, Lawrence, take your bag, 

And go right straight to miU, 
And see, m — y b — o — y, 

That not a bit you spill I " 

This kind of music was naturally popular. Such a serv- 
ice relieves the tedium of a Sunday afternoon, and has some- 
thing of the charm a dog finds in pursuing his own tail. 

Some of the members of the class turned their heads and 
their vocal mouths towards the door when Tom came in, 
but in the midst of this jangle of voices singing different 
portions of the same air most of them had all they could do 
to keep their time by waving their heads or thumping their 
toes on the puncheon floor, while they alternately looked at 
their books and at Bryant, who thrashed away with his 
whip, his lips seeming to say, though the words were inaudi- 
ble in the general din : 

" Up, down, right, left, up," as he perpetually made right 
angles in the air. Rachel was in the act of drawing the 
word "boy" to the full length of a long note with a hold 
after it, but she looked up long enough to recognize the 
new arrival ; then she dropped her eyes to the book again 
and gave the most severe attention to Bryant and the square 
notes thereafter, not once looking at Tom to the end. From 
this unwonted absorption in her music, Tom inferred that 



46 THE QBATSONS 

Rachel had somehow heard of his misconduct and was 
offended. But her charms enchanted him more than ever 
now that they were receding from him, and with a charac- 
teristic resolution he determined not to give her up without 
a sharp endeavor to regain his lost ground. 

When the "singing'' "let out," Tom availed himself of 
the first moment of confusion, while Rachel stood apart, to 
ask permission to go home with her, in the weD-wom 
formula which was the only polite and proper word to use 
for the purpose ; for it is strange how rigidly certain exact 
forms were adhered to among people where intercourse was 
for the most part familiar and unconventional. 

" May I see you safe home t '^ he asked, as he had often 
asked before, but never before with trepidation. 

" No," said Rachel, with an evident effort, and without 
looking at Tom's face. 

Such an answer is technically known as " the sack " and 
" the mitten," though it would take a more inventive anti- 
quary than I to tell how it got these epithets. But it was 
one of the points on which the rural etiquette of that day 
was rigorous and inflexible, that such a refusal closed the 
conversation and annihilated the beau without allowing 
him to demand any explanations or to make any further 
advances at the time. Tom was not of the sort easily 
snuffed out. He had to ride past Rachel's house, and it 
would be an addition to his disappointment that everybody 
would see his discomfiture. So he answered. 

" Well, I '11 lead up your horse for you anyhow," and 



THE MITTEN 47 

he went out before she could make up her mind to refuse 
him, and brought the sorrel filly alongside a tree-stump 
left standing in front of the school-house for a horse- 
block. The rest had by this time either mounted and 
gone, or were walking away afoot. Rachel felt a secret 
admiration for his audacity as she sprang into her saddle, 
while Tom held her bridle and adjusted the stirrup to her 
foot 

" What have I done, Rachel t ^ 

"You know, well enough.'^ Her voice was low and 
tremulous. She had dismissed other favorites, but never 
before had she found in herself so much reluctance. 

" Do you mean my gambling with Dave Sovine t ^ said 
Tom, driving, as usual, point-blank at the very center of 
things. 

" Yes.'' 

" Who told you t ^ He still held on to her bridle-rein 
with his left hand, — somewhat as a highwayman does in 
romances. 

"Oh ! I guess everybody knows. Ike heard it yesterday, 
from George Lockwood or somebody.'' 

"It was Lockwood got me into it," said Tom, shutting, 
his teeth hard. " If you 'd let me go home with you, I 
could explain things a little." 

But those who are enervated by the balmy climate of 

^ flattery naturally dread a stiff breeze of ridicule. Rachel 

Albaugh did not like to bear any share of the odium that 

must come on Tom when his recklessness, and, above all, his 



48 THE GRAT80N8 

bad lacky shonld become known. She drew the rein that 
Tom held, until he felt obliged to let it go, and said " No.** 

'' I have got what I needed," said Tom, making the best 
of his defeat 

" Whatt " asked Rachel. 

" Oh I one mitten is n't of any use alone ; you Ve given 
me a pair of them." 

Tom felt now the exhilaration of desperation. He gayly 
mounted his horse, and bade Rachel a cheerful good-bye 
as he galloped past her ; then, when he had overtaken a 
group of those ahead of Rachel, he reined up and turned in 
the saddle, leaning his left hand on the croup, while he 
joked and bantered with one and another. Then he put his 
horse into a gallop again. 

When he was well out of hearing, Henry Miller, who was 
one of the party, remarked to his companions that he did 
n't know what was up, but it seemed to him as though Tom 
Grayson had got something that looked like a mitten with- 
out any thumb. " That 's one more that Rache 's shed," he 
remarked. ''But when she gets a chance to shed me 
she 'U know it." 

As Tom rode onward toward the viDage his spirits sank 
again, and he let his horse break down into an easy trot and 
then into a slow walk. 

It was no longer Sovine that he cursed inwardly. George 
Lockwood, he reflected, had called him away from the Law 
of Common Carriers to play a little game with Dave, and 
it was Lockwood who had reported his discomfiture to the 



THE MITTEN 49 

Albaughs. He put these things together by maltiplication 

rather than by addition, and concluded that Lockwood, 

from the first, had planned his ruin in order to destroy 

his chances with Rachel, which was giving that mediocre 

young man credit for a depth of f orethinking malice he was 

far from possessing. 

Monday morning Tom went into Wooden & Snyder's 

store on the way to his office above. Lockwood had just 

finished sweeping out ; the sprinkling upon the floor was 

not dry ; it yet showed the figure 8s which he had made in 

swinging the sprinkler to and fro as he walked. The only 

persons in the store were two or three villagers 5 the country 

people rarely came in on Monday, and never at so early an 

hour. One frisky young man of a chatty temperament had 

stopped to exchange the gossip of the morning with George ; 

but meaning to make his halt as slight as possible, he had 

not gone farther than the threshold, on which he now 

balanced himself, with his hands in his pockets, talking as 

he rocked nervously to and fro, like a bird on a waving 

bough in a wind. Another villager had slouched in to buy 

a pound of nails, with which to repair the damage done to 

his garden fence by the pigs during Sunday ; but as he was 

never in a hurry, he stood back and gave the first place to 

a carpenter who wanted a three-cornered file, and who was 

in haste to get to his day's work. When Lockwood had 

attended to the carpenter, Tom beckoned him to the back 

part of the store, and without saying a word counted out 

to him the money he had borrowed. 
5 



50 THE GRAY80N8 

Something in Tom's manner gave Lockwood a sneaking 
feeling that his own share in this affair was not creditable. 
His was one of those consciences that take their cue from 
without. Of independent moral judgment he had little ; but 
he had a vague desire to stand well in the judgment of 
others, and even to stand well in his own eyes when judged 
by other people's code. It was this half -evolved conscience 
that made him wish — what shall I say f — to atone for the 
harm he had but half -intentionally done to Tomf or, to 
remove the unfavorable impression that Tom evidently had 
of his conduct? At any rate, when he had taken his 
money again, he ventured to offer some confidential advice 
in a low tone. For your cool man who escapes the pitfalls 
into which better and cleverer men often go headlong is 
prone to rank his worldly wisdom, and even his sluggish 
temperament, among the higher virtues. Some trace of 
this relative complacency made itself heard perhaps in Look- 
wood's voice, when he said in an undertone : 

" You know, Tom, if I were you, I 'd take a solemn oath 
never to touch a card again. You 're too rash." 

This good counsel grated on the excited feelings of the 
recipient of it. 

" I don't want any advice from you," said Tom in a bit- 
ter monotone. 

I have heard it mentioned by an expert that a super- 
heated steam-boiler is likely to explode with the first escape 
of steam, the slight relief of pressure precipitating the catas- 
trophe. Tom had resolved not to speak a word to Lock- 



THE MITTEN 51 

woody but his wounded aud indignant pride had brooded 
over Rachel's rejection the livelong night, and now the air 
of patronage in Lockwood drew from him this beginning ; 
then his own words aggravated his feelings, and speech 
became an involuntary explosion. 

" You called me down-stairs," he said, " and got me into 
this scrape. Do you think I don't know what it was fort 
You took pains to have word about it go where it would do 
me the most harm." 

" I did n't do any such thing,'' said Lockwood. 

" You did," said Tom. " You told Ike Albaugh Satur- 
day. You 're a cold-blooded villain, and if you cross my 
path again I '11 shoot you." 

By this time he was talking loud enough for all in the 
store to hear. The villager who wanted nails had sidled a 
little closer to the center of the explosion, the young man 
tilting to and fro on the threshold of the front door had 
come inside the store and was deeply engaged in studying 
the familiar collection of pearl buttons, colored sewing- 
silks, ribbons, and other knick-knacks in the counter show- 
case, while the carpenter had forgotten his haste, and turning 
about stood now with his tool-box under his arm, looking 
at Tom Grayson and Lockwood with blunt curiosity. 

" That 's a nice way to treat me, I must say," said Lock- 
wood, in a kind of whine of outraged friendship. " You 'd 'a' 
gone home bareheaded and in your shirt-sleeves and your 
stocking-feet, if 't had n't 'a' been fer me." 

" I 'd 'a' gone home with my money in my pocket, if you 



52 THE GRJTSOXS 

and Dave Sovine had n't fixed it up between you to fleece 
me. I 'xpect you made as much out of it as Dave did. You 
Ve got me out 'v your way now. But you look out ! Don't 
you cross my track again, George Lockwood, or I '11 kill you ! ^ 

In a new country, where life is f idl of energy and effer- 
vescence, it is much easier for an enraged man to talk about 
killing than it is in a land of soberer thinking and less law- 
lessness. The animal which we call a young man was not 
so tame in Illinois two generations ago as it is now. But 
Tom's threat, having given vent to his wrath, lowered the 
pressure : by the time he had made this second speech his 
violence had partly spent itself, and he became conscious 
that he was heard by the three persons in the store, as well as 
by Snyder, the junior proprietor, who stood now in the back 
door. Tom Grayson turned and strode out of the place, dimly 
aware that he had again run the risk of bringing down the 
avalanche by his rashness. For if Tom was quickly brought 
to a white-heat, radiation was equally rapid. Long before 
noon he saw clearly that he had probably rendered it im- 
possible to keep the secret of his gambling from his uncle. 
All the town would hear of his quarrel with Lockwood, and 
all the town would set itself to know to the utmost the inci- 
dent that was the starting-point of a wrath so violent. 

If Tom had not known by many frosty experiences his 
uncle's unimpressionable temper, he would have followed his 
instinct and gone directly to him with a frank confession. 
But there was nothing to be gained by such a course with 
such a man. 




VI 

mrCLE AND : 



ROMAS GRAYSON the elder was one of those 

T~^ men wlio contrive to play an importatit part 
^^ in a commmiity without having any speciflo 
BSM8811 vocation. He had a warehouse in which space 
B sometimeB let for the storage of other people's goods, 
but which also served to hold country produce whenever, 
in view of a prohahle rise in the market, he chose to enter 
the field as a cash buyer in competition with the " store- 
keepers," who bought only in exchange for goods. Some- 
times, in the fall and the winter, he would purchase bogs 
and cattle from the farmers and have them driven to the 
most promising market. He also served the purpose of 
a storage reservoir in the village trade ; for he always had 
money or credit, and whenever a house, or a horse, or a 
mortgage, or a saw-mill, or a lot of timber, or a farm, or a 
fitoek of goods was put on the market at forced sale, Gray- 
son the elder eould be counted on to buy it if no better 
purchaser were to be found. He had no definite place of 
bosineBS ; he was generally to be found about t^e street, 

5. 



54 THE GRATS0N8 

ready to buy or seD, or to exchange one thing for another, 
whenever there was a chance to make a profit. 

He had married late ; and even in marrying he took care 
to make a prudent investment. His wife brought a con- 
siderable addition to his estate and no unduly expensive 
habits. Like her husband, she was of a thrifty disposition 
and plain in her tastes. The temptations to a degree of 
ostentation are stronger in a village than in a city, but Mrs. 
Grayson was not moved by them ; she lent herself to her 
husband's ambition to accumulate. Not that the Graysons 
were without pride ; they thought, indeed, a good deal of 
their standing among their neighbors. But it was gratify- 
ing to them to know that the village accounted Grayson a 
good deal better off than some who indulged in a larger 
display. The taking of Tom had been one of those eco- 
nomic combinations which men like Grayson are fond of 
making. He knew that his neighbors thought he ought to 
do something for his brother's family. To pay the debt on 
the farm would be the simplest way of doing this, but it 
would be a dead deduction from the ever-increasing total 
of his assets. When, however, Barbara had come to him 
with a direct suggestion that he should help her promising 
brother to a profession, the uncle saw a chance to discharge 
the obligation which the vicarious sentiment of his neighbors 
and the censure of his own conscience imposed on him, and 
to do it with advantage to himself. He needed somebody 
"to do choores" at his house j the wood had to be sawed, 
the cow had to be milked, the horse must be fed, and the 



UNCLE AND NEPHEW 55 

garden attended to. Like most other villagers, Grayson 
had been wont to look after such things himself, but as his 
wealth and his affairs increased, he had found the chores a 
burden on his time and some detraction from his dignity. 
So he, therefore, took his namesake into his house and sent 
him to the village school for three years, and then put him 
into the office of Lawyer Blackman, to whom he was wont 
to intrust his conveyancing and law business. This law 
business entailed a considerable expense, and Thomas Gray- 
son the elder may have seen more than a present advantage 
in having his nephew take up the profession imder his pro- 
tection. But the young man's unsteadiness, late hours, 
and impulsive rashness had naturally been very grievous 
to a cool-headed speculator who never in his life had suf- 
fered an impulse or a sentiment to obstruct his enterprises. 
Of domestic life there was none in the house of Thomas 
Grayson, unless one should give that name to sleeping and 
waking, cooking and eating, cleaning the house and casting 
up accounts. With his wife Grayson talked about the 
diverse speculations he had in hand or in prospect, and 
canvassed his neighbors chiefly on the business side of their 
lives, pleasing his pride of superior sagacity in pointing out 
the instances in which they had failed to accomplish their 
ends from apathy or sheer blundering. The husband and 
wife had no general interest in anything ; no playful ban- 
ter, no interesting book, no social assemblage or cheerful 
game ever ameliorated the austerity of their lives. The 
one thread of sentiment woven into their stone-colored 



56 THE GBAYS0N8 

existence was a passionate fondness for their only child 
Janet, a little thing five years old when Tom came into the 
house to do chores and go to school, — a child of seven now 
that Tom was drifting into trouble that threatened to end 
his professional career before it had been began. Janet 
was vivacious and interesting rather than pretty, though 
her mass of dark hair, contrasting with a fair skin and 
blue eyes, made her appearance noticeable. Strict in their 
dealings with themselves and severe with others, Janet's 
father and mother did not know how to refuse her any- 
thing; she had grown up willful and a little overbearing; 
but she was one of those children of abimdant imagination 
and emotion that sometimes, as by a freak of nature, are 
born to commonplace parents. Those who knew her were 
prone to say that "the child must take back"; for people 
had observed this phenomenon of inheritance from remote 
ancestors and given it a name long before learned men 
discovered it and labeled it atavism. 

A fellow like Tom, full of all sorts of impetuosities, could 
not help being in pretty constant conflict with his uncle and 
aunt. On one pretext or another he contrived to escape from 
the restraints of the house, and to spend his evenings in such 
society as a village offers. A young man may avoid the 
temptations of a great city, where there are many circles of 
association to choose from ; but in a village where there is 
but one group, and where all the youth are nearly on a 
level, demoralization is easier. Tom had a country boy's 
appetite for companionship and excitement; he had no 



UNCLE AND NEPHEW 57 

end of buoyant spirits and cordial friendliness; and* he 
was a good teller of amusing stories, — so that he easily 
came to be a leader in all the frolics and freaks of the 
town. His nnde administered some severe rebukes and 
threatened graver consequences ; but rebukes and threats 
served only to add the spice of peril to Tom's adventures. 

The austerity of acquisitiveness is more tedious to others, 
perhaps, than the austerity of religious conviction. To a 
child like Janet, endowed with passion and imagination, 
the grave monotony of the Grayson household was almost 
unbearable. Prom the moment of Tom's coming she had 
clung to him, rejoicing in his boyish spirits, and listening 
eagerly to his fund of stories, which were partly made up 
for her amusement, and partly drawn from romances which 
he had somewhat surreptitiously read. When he was away, 
Janet watched for his return ; she romped with him in de- 
fiance of the stiff proprieties of the house, and she followed 
him at his chores. She cherished a high admiration for 
his daring and rebellious spirit, often regretting that she 
was not a boy : it would be fine to dimb out of a bedroom 
window at night to get away to some forbidden diversion ! 
On the other hand, the unselfish devotion of Tom to the 
child was in strange contrast with the headlong willfulness 
of his character. He made toys and planned surprises for 
her, and he was always ready to give up his time to her 
pleasure. 

It is hardly likely that Grayson would have borne with 
his nephew a single year if it had not been for Janet's 



58 



THE GRATSOXa 



attachment to him. More than once, when his patience 
was clean tired out, he said to his wife something to this 
effect : 

'' I think, Charlotte, I '11 have to send Tom back to his 
mother. He gets nothing but mischief here in town, and 
he worries me to death." 

To which Mrs. Grayson would reply: "Just think of 
Janet. I 'm afraid she 'd pine away if Tom was sent off. 
The boy is kind to her, and I 'm sure that's one good thing 
about him." 

This consideration had always settled the question ; for 
the two main purposes of life with Grayson and his wife 
were to accumulate property and to gratify every wish of 
their child. Having only one sentiment, it had acquired a 
tremendous force. 




vn 

LOCKWOOD'3 SEVENQE 

|HEN Tom, after his riolent speech on that 
!|\ w/ ^1 uDlucky Monday morning, had gone out of 
^W^;^ Wooden & Snyder's store, George Lockwood 
I turnedtoSnyder, the janior partner, and said, 
with his face a little floehed : 

"What a focd that boy is, anyhow! He eame in here 
the other night after the store was shnt np and played 
cards with Dave Sovine till he lost all the money he had. I 
tried my best to stop him, but I conld ut do it. He went 
on and bet all the clo'es he conld spare and lost 'em. I had 
to lend him the money to get 'em back. It seems Tom's 
^1— John Albangh's dangfater — heard of it, and now he 
will have it that I vent in piotnership with Sovine to get 
his money, and that I wanted to get Rachel Albangh away 
from "im." 

"Ton onght n't to have any card-playing here," said 
Snyder. 

"I told the boys then that if they come in here again 
they most n't bring any cards." 



60 THE GRATSOXS 

" Tom 's a fool to threaten you that way. You could 
bind him over on that, I suppose," said Suyder. 

" I s'pose I could/' said George. 

But he did nothing that day. He prided himself on 
being a man that a body could n't run over, but he had his 
own way of resisting aggression; he was not Esau, but 
Jacob. Ho could not storm and threaten like Tom ; there 
was no tempest in him. Cold venom will keep, and Lock- 
wood's resentments did not lose their strength by exposure 
to the air. The day after Tom's outburst, Lockwood, hav- 
ing taken time to consider the alternatives, suggested to 
Snyder, that while he was n't afraid of Tom, there was no 
knowing what such a hot-head might do. Lockwood pro- 
fessed an unwilllDgness to bind Tom over to keep the peace, 
but thought some iDfiuence might be brought to bear- on 
him that would serve the purpose. Snyder proposed that 
Lockwood should go to see Tom's uncle, but George 
objected. That would only inflame Tom and make mat- 
ters worse. Perhaps Snyder would see Blackman, so 
that Lockwood need not appear in the matter f Then 
Blackman could speak to Grayson the elder, if he thought 
best. 

The calculating temper, and the touch of craftiness, pli- 
ancy, and tact in Lockwood served the CDds of his employers 
in many ways, and Snyder was quite willing to put his clerk 
under obligations of friendsliip to him. Therefore, when 
he saw Tom go out of the office, Snyder mounted the stairs 
and had an interview with Blackman. As the lawyer was 



LOCKWOOJyS REVENGE 61 

intarosted with all the bad debts and pettifogging business 
of Wooden & Snyder, any suggestion from a member of 
the firm was certain to receive attention. Snyder told the 
lawyer that Lockwood did n't want to drag Tom before a 
squire, and suggested that Blackman could settle it by get- 
ting the uncle to give the fellow a good admonition. He 
offered the suggestion as though it were quite on his own 
motion, he having overheard Tom's threat. The hand of 
George Lockwood was concealed; but it was only Lock- 
wood who knew how exceedingly vulnerable Tom's fortunes 
were on the side of his relations with his uncle. That even- 
ing Blackman sat in Grayson's sitting-room. He was a 
man with grayish hair, of middle height, and rather too lean - 
to fill up his clothes, which hung on his frame rather than 
fitted it; and if one regarded his face, there seemed too 
little substance to quite fill out his skin, which was not 
precisely wrinkled, but rather wilted. Grayson had turned 
around in his writing-chair and sat with one leg over the 
arm, but Blackman had probably never lolled in his life : 
he was possessed by a sort of impotent uneasiness that sim- 
ulated energy and diligence. He sat, as was his wont, on 
the front rail of the chair-seat, as though afraid to be com- 
fortable, and he held in his hand a high hat half full of 
papers, according to the custom of the lawyers of that day, 
who carried on their heads that part of their business which 
they could not carry in them. Blackman told the story of 
Tom's gambling as he had heard it, and of his threatening 
Lockwood, while the brows of Tom's uncle visibly darkened. 



62 TEE GRATSOKS 

Then the lawyer came to what he knew would seem to 
Grayson the vital point in the matter. 

" You know,'' he said, " if George Lockwood was a-mind 
to, he could bind Tom to keep the peace ; though I don't 
s'pose Tom meant anything more than brag by talking 
that way. But it would n't be pleasant for you to have 
Tom hauled up, and to have to go his baiL I told Snyder 
I thought you could fix it up without going before the 
squire." Blackman passed his heavily laden hat from his 
right hand to his left, and then with the right he nervously 
reached up his stiff, rusty hair, which he habitually kept 
standing on end. After which he took a red silk handker- 
• chief from his hat and wiped his face, while Grayson got 
up and walked the floor. 

"I should n't like to have to go anybody's bail," said 
the latter after awhile ; " it 's against my principles to go 
security. I suppose the best thing would be to send him 
back to the country to cool off." 

Blackman nodded a kind of half assent, but did not vent- 
ure any further expression of opinion. He rose and depos- 
ited his silk handkerchief in a kind of coil on the papers in 
his hat, and then bent his head forward and downward so 
as to put on the hat without losing its contents ; once it 
was in place he brought his head to a perpendicular posi- 
tion, so that all the mass of portable law business settled 
, down on the handkerchief, which acted as a cushion between 
Blackman's affairs and his head. 

Tom came in as Blackman went out, and something in 



LOCKWOOJya revenge 63 

the manner of the latter gave him a feeling that he had 
been the subject of conversation between the lawyer and 
his nnde. He went directly to his room, and debated 
within himself whether or not he should go down and 
interrupt by a frank and full confession the discussion 
which he thought was probably taking place between Mr. 
and Mrs. Grayson. But knowing his uncle's power of pas- 
sive resistance, he debated long — so long that it came to 
be too late, and he went to bed, resolved to have the first 
of it with his uncle in the morning. 

There was a very serious conference between the two 
members of the Grayson firm that evening. Mrs. Grayson 
again presented to her husband the consideration that, if 
Tom should go away, she did n't see what she was to do 
with Janet. The child would cry her eyes out, and there 'd 
be no managing her. Grayson sat for some time helpless 
before this argument. 

" I don't see," he said at length, " but we 've got to face 
Janet. We might as well teach her to mind first as last.'' 
It was a favorite theory with both of them that some day 
Janet was to be taught to mind. So long as no attempt 
was made to fix the day on which the experiment was to 
begin, the thought pleased them and did no harm. But 
this proposition to undertake the dreadful task at once was 
a spurt of courage in Thomas Grayson that surprised his 
wife. 

" Well, Mr. Grayson," she said, with some spirit, " the 
child 's as much yours as she 's mine j and if she 's to be 



64 THE GRAT80N8 

taught to mind to-morrow, I only hope you 'U stay at home 
and begin.'' 

To this suggestion the husband made no reply. He got 
up and began to look under the furniture for the boot-jack, 
according to his custom of pulling off his boots in the sit- 
ting-room every night before going to bed. 

"You see, Charlotte,'' he said deprecatingly, when he 
had fished his boot-jack out from under the bureau, "I 
don't know what to do. If I keep Tom, Lockwood 11 have 
him before the squire, and I 'U have to pay costs and go 
bail for him." 

" I would n't do it," said Mrs. Grayson promptly. " We 
can't afford to have the little we 've got put in danger for 
him. I think you 'U have to send him home, and we 'U 
have to get on with Janet. I 'm sure we have n't any 
money to waste. People think we 're rich, but we don't 
feel rich. We 're always stinted when we want anything.'* 

The consideration of the risk of the bail settled the mat- 
ter with both of them. But, like other respectable people, 
they settled such questions in duplicate. There are two 
sets of reasons for any course : the one is the real and 
decisive motive at the bottom ; the other is the pretended 
reason you impose on yourself and fail to impose on your 
neighbors. The minister accepts the caU to a new church 
with a larger salary ; he tells himself that it is on account of 
opportunities for increased usefulness that he changes. 
The politician accepts the office he did n't want out of defer- 
ence to the wishes of importunate friends. A widower 



LOCKirOOiyS revenge 65 

marries for the good of his children. These are not hypo- 
crites imposing on their neighbors ; that is a hard thing to 
do, nnless the neighbors really wished to be hambagged in 
the interest of a theory. But we keep complacency whole 
by little impostures devised for our private benefit. It is 
pleasant to believe that we are acting from Sunday motives, 
but we always keep good substantial week-day reasons for 
actual service. These will bear hard usage without becom- 
ing shiny or threadbare, and they are warranted not to lose 
their colors in the sunshine. 

" I 'm sure," said Grayson, " Tom gets no good here. If 
anything will do him any good, it will be sending him to 
the country to shift for himself. It 'U make a man of him, 
maybe." No better Sunday reason for his action could 
have been found. 

" I think it 's your duty to send him home," said his wife, 
who was more frightened the more she thought of the pos- 
sible jeopardy of a few hundred dollars from the necessity 
her husband would be under of going Tom's bail. " A boy 
like Tom is a great deal better off with his mother," she 
went on ; " and I 'm sure we 've tried to do what we could 
for him, and nobody can blame us if he will throw away 
his chance." 

Thus the question was doubly settled; and as by this 

time Mr. Grayson's boots were off, and he had set them in 

the corner and pushed the boot-jack into its place under 

the bureau with his foot, there was no reason why they 

should not take the candle and retire. 
6» 



66 THE GRATSONS 

But when morning came Qrayson was still loth to face 
the matter of getting rid of Tom, and especially of contend- 
ing with Janet. Tom found no chance to talk with him 
before breakfast, for the uncle did not come out of his bed- 
room till the coffee was on the table, and he was so silent 
and constrained that Tom felt his doom in advance. Janet 
tried to draw her father and then her mother into conversa- 
tion, but failing, she settled back with the remark, " This 
is the Grossest family!'' Then she made an attempt on 
Tom, who began by this time to feel that exhilaration of 
desperation that was usually the first effect of a catastro- 
phe on his combative spirit, for no man could be more 
impudent to fate than he. When Janet playfully stole a 
biscuit from his plate, he pretended to search for it every- 
where, and then set in a breakfast-table romp between the 
two which exasperated the feelings of Grayson and his 
wife. When they rose from the table the uncle turned 
severely on his nephew, and said : *' Tom ^ 

But before he could speak a second word, the nephew, 
putting Janet aside, interrupted him with : 

" Uncle, I should like to speak with you alone a minute.** 

They went into the sitting-room together, and Tom closed 
the door. Tom was resolved to have the first of it. 

" Uncle, I think I had better go home." Tom was look- 
ing out of the window as he spoke. " I got into a row last 
week through George Lockwood, who persuaded me to play 
cards for money with Dave Sovine. I don't want to get 
you into any trouble, so I 'm off for Hubbard Township, if 



LOCKWOOUS REVENGE 67 

you don't object. There 's no use of crying over spilt milk, 
and that 's all there is about it." 

" I ^m very sorry, Tom, that you won't pay attention to 
what I 've said to you about card-playing." The elder 
Grayson had seated himself, while Tom now stood nervously 
listening to his uncle's voice, which was utterly dry and 
business-like j there was not the slightest quiver of feeling 
in it. " I 've got on in the world without anybody to help 
me, but I never let myself play cards, and I 've always kept 
my temper. You never make any money by getting mad, 
and if you 're going to make any money, it 's better to have 
people friendly. Now, I have to stand a good deal of abuse. 
People try to cheat me, and if I take the law they call me a 
skinflint ; but I should n't make a cent more by quarreling, 
and I might lose something. I can't keep you, and have 
you go on as you do. I 've told you that before. You 'd 
better go home. Town will ruin you. A little hard work 
in the country '11 be better, and you won't be gambling 
away the last cent you Ve got with a loafer like Dave 
Sovine, and then threatening to shoot somebody, as you 
did young Lockwood day before yesterday. Just think 
what you are coming to, Tom. I Ve done my best for you, 
and you '11 never be anything but a gambler and a loafer, 
I 'm afraid." 

These hard words sounded harder in the level and self- 
complacent voice of the senior Grayson, who spoke slowly 
and with hardly more intensity than there would have 
been in his depreciation of a horse he was trying to buy. 



68 THE GRATSOSS 

" Just think what you 're coming to," he repeated, because 
he felt that the proper thing to do under the circumstances 
was to give Tom a good " talking to," and he could n't 
think of anything more to say. 

"I don't need you to tell me what I 'm coming to,'^ 
replied Tom, tartly ; " I 'm coming to the plow-handle and 
the grubbing-hoe. I 'm sorry to give you trouble, but what 
I feel meanest about is mother and poor Barbara. I know 
what a fool I Ve been. But I 'm no more a gambler and a 
loafer than you are. It 'U take me longer to work into the 
law by myself, but I '11 get there yet, and you '11 see it" 

This was Tom's only adieu to his uncle, on whom confes- 
sions of wrong and expressions of gratitude, had he felt like 
uttering them, would have been wasted. Tom went to his 
room, thumping his feet defiantly on the stairs. He made 
a bundle of his clothes, while his uncle sneaked out of the 
house to avoid a collision with his little daughter, the only 
person of whom he was afraid. 

Tom told his Aunt Charlotte good-bye with a high head j 
but when it came to Janet, he put both arms about the 
child and drew her to him with a fond embrace. 

*' You shan't go away, Tom," she said, disengaging her- 
self. "What are you going for? Did they say you mustt^ 
By "they " Janet meant her parents, whom she regarded as 
the allied foes of poor Tom. She looked indignantly at her 
mother, who had turned her back on this scene of parting. 

" I 'm going to help my mother," said Tom ; " she 's poor, 
and I ought n't to have left her." 



LOCRWOOJyS REVENGE 69 

He again embraced the child, who began to cry bitterly. 
"What shall I do when you 're gonet" she sobbed on his 
shoulder. " This house won't be fit to live in. Such a lot 
of old pokes ! " And she stamped her feet and looked pout- 
ingly at her mother. 

Tom disengaged himself from her iutermittent embraces, 
and went out with his bundle in his hand. 

He went first to the law-office, and sat his bundle on a 
chair, and addressed himself to Blackman, who had already 
arrived, and who was apparently much preoccupied with 
his writing. 

" Mr. Blackman, I Ve made a fool of myself by gambliug, 
and Uncle Tom has concluded I can't stay with him any 
longer. I don't much wonder at it either. But I do hate 
to give up the study. Could n't you give me something to 
do, so that I could earn my board at your house t" 

" No," said the lawyer, looking off horizontally, but not 
at Tom. "I was just going to tell you I could n't keep 
you in the office. You 've got altogether too much gun- 
powder for a lawyer. Better get into the regular army, 
Tom ; that would suit your temper better." Then, after a 
moment's pause, he added: " I 've got young sons, and your 
example might ruin them if you should come to my house 
to live.^ And he leaned forward as though he would re- 
sume his writing. These were sound and logical reasons 
that Blackman gave for not keeping Tom, and the lawyer 
was sincere as far as he went. But had he discovered by 
this time that Tom's mind was clearer and more acute than 



70 THE GBATSOXS 

his own, and that if Tom should come to the bar with his 
uncle's backing he would soon be a formidable rival t 

" Besides," resumed the lawyer, as Tom turned reluctantly 
away, " it 's better for you to go to the country. George 
Lockwood will have you bound over to keep the peace if 
you stay, and now you 're out with your uncle, who 's 
going your bail t " 

"Always George Lockwood,'' Tom thought, as he took up 
his bundle. 

"Good-bye, Mr. Blackman!" Tom's voice was husky 
now. But when he descended the stairs he went down the 
village street with a bold front, telling his old cronies 
good-bye, answering their questions frankly, and braving 
it out to the last. Put the best face upon it he could, his 
spirit was bitter, and to a group of old companions who 
followed him to the " corporation line," at the edge of the 
village, he said, almost involuntarily : 

" George Lockwood got me into this scrape to upset me, 
and he 's purty well done it. If he ever crosses my path, 
I 'm going to get even with him." 

Such vague threats do not bind one to any definite 
execution, and they are a relief to the spirit of an angry 
man. 

Having broken with his uncle, Tom must walk the long 
ten miles to his mother's farm in Hubbard Township. Be- 
fore he got there his head was down ; the unwonted fatigue 
of his journey, the bitter sense of defeat, the dark picture 
his imagination made of his mother's disappointment and 



LOCKWOOJyS REVENGE 71 

of the despair of the ambitious Barbara took all the heart 
out of him. 

When he reached home he strode into the house and sat 
down without saying a word. 

"Has Uncle Tom turned you off f '' asked Barbara, falter- 
ing a little and putting down her knitting. She had been 
dreading this end of all her hopes. 

"Yes,'' said Tom ; " and I wish to ;he Lord I was dead 
and done for." And he leaned his head on his left hand. 

" Oh, my poor boy ! ^ began Mrs. Grayson, and you did 
n't mean no harm neither. And you 're the only boy I Ve 
got, too. All the rest dead and gone. They 's no end of 
troubles in this world ! " 

Tom's shoulders were heaving with feeling. After a 
moment or two of silence, Barbara went over and put her 
hand on him. 

" Pshaw, Tom ! what 's the use of giving upt You 're a 
splendid fellow in spite of all, and you 'U make your way 
yet. You only needed a settler, and now you 've got it. It 
won't look so bad by next week. You '11 take a school next 
winter, and after that go back to study law again." 

Then she quietly went to the clothes-press by the chim- 
ney and got out a hank of yam, and said to Tom : 

" Here, hold this while I wind it. I was just wishing you 
were here when I saw my ball giving out. That 's like you 
used to do for me. Don't you remember! Mother, get 
Tom something to eat ; he 's tired and hungry, I expect." 

And choking down the disappointment which involved 



72 



THE GRAY80N8 



more than Tom suspected, the keen, black-eyed ^rl wonnd 
her yam and made an effort to chat with Tom as though he 
had come home on a visit. 

As the last strands were wound on the baU, Tom looked 
at his sister and said : 

^' Barbara, you 're one of a thousand. But I know this 
thing 's thundering hard on you. I 'm going to try to 
make it up to you from this time. I wish to goodness I 
had half of your steady sense." 



vm 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 




IBOM childhood Barbara's ambition had cen- 
tered in Tom; it was her plan that the 
clever brother should give standing to the 
family by his success in life. If Tom could 
only be persuaded to be steady, he might come to be a 
great man. A great man, in her thinking, was a member 
of the State legislature, or a circuit judge, for example : to 
her provincial imagination the heights above these were 
hazy and ahnost inaccessible. The scheme of a professional 
career for Tom had been her own, in conception and man- 
agement ; for though her brother was nearly two years her 
senior, she, being prudent and forecasting, had always 
played the part of an elder. Tom's undeniable "bright- 
ness" was a great source of pride to her. In spite of his 
heedless collisions with the masters, he was always at the 
head of his classes ; and it seemed to Barbara the most natural 
thing in the world that she, being a girl, should subordi- 
nate herself to the success of a brother so promising. She 
had left school to devote herself to the house and the cares 

78 



74 THE GRATS0N8 

of the farm, in order that Tom might be educated — in the 
moderate sense of the word then prevalent. The brother 
was far from being ungrateful ; if he accepted his sister's 
sacrifices without protest, he repaid her with a demonstra- 
tive affection and admiration not often seen in brothers ; 
and there were times when he almost reverenced in her 
that prudence and practical wisdom in which he found him- 
self deficient. 

It was only during this summer that Barbara had been 
seized with independent aspirations for herself^ and per- 
haps even these were not without some relation to Tom. If 
Tom should come to be somebody in the county, she would 
sit in a reflected light as his sister. It became her, there- 
fore, not to neglect entirely her own education. To go to 
Moscow to a winter school was out of the question. Every 
nerve was strained to extricate the farm from debt and to 
give a little help, now and then, to Tom. It chanced, how- 
ever, that a student from an incipient Western college, 
intent on getting money to pay his winter's board bills, had 
that summer opened a *' pay school " in the Timber Creek 
district school-house, which was only two miles from the 
Grayson farm. 

Those who could attend school in the summer were, for 
the most part, small fry too young to be of much service in 
the field, and such girls, larger and smaller, as could be 
spared from home. But the appetite for " schooling " in 
the new country was always greater than the supply ; and 
when it was reported that a school was " to be took up'^ in 



BABBARA'8 PRIVATE AFFAIRS 75 

the Timber Creek school-house, by a young man who had 
not only " ciphered plumb through the Rule of Three,'' but 
had even begun to penetrate the far-away mysteries of 
Latin and algebra, it came to pass that several young men 
and young women, living beyond the district limits, sub- 
scribed to the school, that they might attend it, even if 
only irregularly; — not that any of the pupils dreamed of 
attacking the Latin, but a teacher who had attained this 
Ultima Thule of human learning was supposed to know 
well all that lay on the hither side of it. The terms of a 
"pay school," in that day, were low enough, — a dollar and 
twenty-five cents was the teacher's charge for each pupil for 
thirteen weeks ; but the new schoolmaster had walked from 
home to avoid traveling expenses, the log school-house cost 
him no rent, and he had stipulated that he should " board 
'round" in the families of his patrons, so that the money he 
received from twenty pupils was clear profit, and at the 
price of living in those primitive times would pay his board 
at college for six months. 

Barbara, for one, had resolved to treat herself to a dol- 
lar and a quarter's worth of additional learning. The 
Timber Creek school-house was on the road leading to the 
village of Moscow ; she could therefore catch a ride, now 
and then, on the wagon of some farmer bound to the vil- 
lage, by mounting on top of a load of wood, hay, or pota- 
toes ; and often she got a lift in the evening in a neighbor's 
empty wagon rattling homeward from town, or for a part 
of the way by sitting in the tail of some ox-cart plying 



70 THE GRATSONS 

between forest and prairie ; but more frequently she had to 
walk both in going and coming, besides working early and 
late at her household duties. 

Hiram Mason was the name of the new teacher whom 
the pupils found behind the master's desk on the first day 
of school. He was the son of a minister who had come 
out from New England with the laudable intention of lend- 
ing a hand in evangelizing this great strapping West, 
whose vigorous and rather boisterous youth was ever a 
source of bewilderment, and even a cause of grief, to the 
minds of well-regulated Down-easters. The evangelists 
sent out aimed at the impossible, even at the undesirable, 
in seeking to reproduce a New England in communities 
born under a different star. Perhaps it was this peninsular 
trait of mind that prevented the self-denying missionaries 
from making any considerable impression on the country 
south of the belt peopled by the current of migration from 
New England. The civilization of the broad, wedge-shaped 
region on the north side of the Ohio River, which was set- 
tled by Southern and Middle State people, and which is 
the great land of the Indian corn, has been evolved out of 
the healthier elements of its own native constitution. But 
it was indebted to New England, in the time of its need, 
for many teachers of arithmetic and grammar, as well as 
for the less-admirable but never-to-be-forgotten clock-ped- 
dlers and tin-peddlers from Connecticut, who also taught 
the rustics of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois things 
they had never dreamed of before, and took high pay for 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 77 

the instraction. Yonng Mason, thongh he had mostly 
grown up in the new country, and would have scorned the 
name of Yankee, had got from his father that almost super- 
stitious faith in the efficacy of knowledge which, in the 
North-eastern States, has been handed down from genera- 
tion to generation, and which has produced much learning 
and some pedantry. Mason was of middle stature, good 
breadth of shoulder, prominent, broad forehead, and brows 
that overhung his eyes, but were rather high above them. 
He had a well-set chin and a solid jaw ; his mouth was too 
large to be handsome and was firmly closed ; his gait was 
strong, straightforward, resolute, and unhurried. There 
were little touches of eccentricity in him : he had a way of 
looking at an interlocutor askance, and his habitual expres- 
sion was one of mingled shyness and self-contained amuse- 
ment. The religious enthusiasm of his father had been 
transmuted in him to a general earnestness of character, 
which was veiled under a keen perception of the droll side 
of life, derived from a mother of Southern extraction. His 
early-and-late diligence in study was the wonder of the 
country, but the tastes and aspirations that impelled him to 
so much toil rarely found utterance in any confessions, even 
to his nearest friends. Reserved as he was, the people could 
never complain that he held himself above them. A new- 
country youth, the son of a minister on slender pay, Hiram 
understood how to extend a helping hand, when occasion 
required, in any work that might be going on. At school, 

when the young master saw the boys playing at the boister- 

7* 



78 THE 0RAY80N8 

ous and promiscuous ''soak about," he would sometimes 
catch the contagion of the wild fun, and, thrusting his 
" Livy " into the desk, rush out of the door to mix in the 
confusion, throwing the yam ball at one and another with 
a vigor and an accuracy of aim that doubled the respect of 
his pupils for him. But when once he had extricated him- 
self from the miUe, and had rapped on thjB door-frame with 
his ruler, crying, " Books, books ! ^ the boy who a minute 
before had enjoyed the luxury of giving the master what 
was known in school-boy lingo as a " sockdolager,'' deliv- 
ered full in the back, or even on the side of the head, did 
not find any encouragement to presume on that experience 
in school-hours. 

The new master's punishments usually had a touch of his 
drollery in them 5 he contrived to make the culprit ridicu- 
lous, and so to keep the humor of the school on his side. 
A girl who could not otherwise be cured of munching in 
school had to stand in front of the master's desk with an 
apple in her teeth ; a boy who was wont to get his sport by 
pinching his neighbors, and sticking them with pins, was 
forced to make no end of amusement for the school in his 
turn, by standing on the hearth with a cleft stick pinching 
his nose out of shape. It was soon concluded that there 
was no fun in "fooling" with a master who was sure to 
turn the joke on the offender. 

The older pupils who occupied the " writing bench," in 
front of a continuous shelf -like desk fixed along the wall, 
spent much of their time in smuggling from one to another 



BABBARA'8 PRIVATE AFFAIRS 79 

fervid little love notes, which, for disguise, were folded like 
the "thumb-papers" that served to protect their books 
from the wear and tear of their over-vigorous thumbs, and 
from soiling. By passing books from one to another, with 
such innocent-looking square papers in them, a refreshing 
correspondence was kept up. This exchange of smuggled 
billets-doux was particularly active when Rachel Albaugh 
was present. As for the love-letters thus dispatched, they 
were fearfully monotonous and not worth the pains of capt- 
ure by a schoolmaster. Some were straightforward and 
shameless declarations of admiration and affection in prose 
scrawls, but a very common sort was composed entirely of 
one or another of those well-worn doggerel couplets that 
have perhaps done duty since the art of writing became 
known to the Anglo-Saxons. 

** If you love me as I love you, 
No knife can cut our love in two,*' 

was a favorite with the swains of the country school-house ; 
but 

" The rose is red, the violet 's blue, 
Sugar 's sweet, and so are you,'' 

had a molasses-like consistency in its alliterative lines that 
gave it the preference over all other love poems extant. 

Amongst these unblushing scribblers of love doggerel 
and patient cutters and folders of many sorts of thumb- 
papers, whose fits of studying, like chills and fever, came 
on only " by spells," Barbara sat without being one of them. 



80 THE QRATS0N8 

The last chance for education was not to be thrown away ; 
and Mason soon singled out this rather under-sized, sharp- 
eyed girl, not only as the most industrious and clever of 
the pupils in the Timber Creek school, but as a person of 
quite another sort from the rest of them. When he was 
explaining anything to a group of half-listless scholars, her 
dark eyes, drawn to beads, almost startled him with their 
concentrated interest. She could not be taught in any kind 
of classification with the rest; her rate of progress was 
too rapid. So finding that Barbara studied all through 
the recess time, he undertook to give her extra instruction 
while the others were on the playground. The most agree- 
able minutes of his day were those in which he unfolded to 
her the prosaic principles of Vulgar Fractions, of Tare and 
Tret, and of the Rule of Three. This last was the great 
and final goal, and it was attained by few of those who at- 
tended an intermittent country school in that time. To 
reach it was to become competent to teach school. Bar- 
bara, with the help of the master, who directed her to save 
time by omitting some of the rubbish in Pike's Arithmetic, 
was soon in sight of this promised land of the Rule of Three, 
and it became a question of reviewing the book once more, 
when she should be through with it, so as to take rank 
among those who would certainly "do every sum in the 
book." 

"Why not take up algebra?'' said the teacher to her, 
during a long noon recess as they sat side by side at his 
desk poring over a slate full of figures. 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 81 

" Do you think I could learn it t '^ she asked. 

" You could learn anything/' he said ; and the assurance 
gave Barbara more pleasure than any commendation she 
had ever received. But she did not know what to reply. 
To go beyond the arithmetic would be, according to the 
standard of the country, to have a liberal education, and 
she was ambitious enough to like that. But where would 
she get the money to buy a text-book t She did n't wish to 
confess her scruple of economy. It was not that she was 
ashamed of her poverty, for poverty might be said to be 
the prevailing fashion in the Timber Creek country ; but it 
would be bringing to Mason's attention her private affairs, 
and from that she shrank with an instinct of delicacy for 
which she could not have given any reason. Yet there sat 
Mason, leaning back and waiting for her to reply to his 
question. After a few moments she mustered courage to 
ask timidly : 

" Would the book cost much t " 

" I would n't buy any book just now," said the master, 
seeing the drift of her thoughts. He went to one comer of 
the school-room, and, standing on the bench, pushed aside 
one of the boards laid loosely over the joists above. It was 
here, in the dark loft, that he kept the few articles not 
necessary to his daily existence in boarding 'round. Reach- 
ing his hand up above the boards, he found a copy of a 
school text-book on algebra, and brought it down with him, 
rapping it against his hand and blowing the dust off it. 

** Use that for a while," he said. 



82 THE ORATSONS 

" Oh, thank you ! " said Barbara, taking hold of the 
book with a curious sense of reverence, which was greatly 
increased as she turned the leaves and regarded the sym- 
bols, whose nature and use were quite inconceivable to her. 
Here was a knowledge beyond any that she had ever 
dreamed of looking into ] beyond that of any schoolmaster 
she had ever known, except Mason. '^ It looks hard," she 
said, regarding him. 

" Take it home and try it,'' he replied, as he took up his 
ruler to call the scholars to books. 

A closer companionship now grew up between the master 
and the pupil. Both of them anticipated with pleasure the 
coming of recess time, when the new study could be dis- 
cussed together. Henceforth the boys looked in vain for 
Mason to take a turn with them in playing soak-about. 

To a man of high aims nothing is more delightful than 
to have a devoted disciple. Even the self-contained Mason 
could not be quite unmoved in contemplating this young 
girl, all of whose tastes and ambitions flowed in the same 
channel with his own, listening to him as to an oracle. K 
he had not been so firmly fixed in his resolve that he would 
not allow any woman to engage his affections before he had 
completed his college course, he might have come to fall in 
love with her. But all such thoughts he resolutely put 
aside. Of course, teaching her was a delight; but who 
could help feeling delight in teaching such a learner! 
Moreover, he was particularly fond of algebra. But he 
could hardly lay all of his enjoyment to his liking for alge- 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 83 

bra, or his pleasure in teaching a quick-witted pupil. He 
could not make himself believe that it was his enjoyment 
of algebraic generalizations that made his hand tremble 
whenever he returned a slat« or book to Barbara Grayson. 

Barbara, for her part, was too intent on her work to 
think much about anything else. She had more than once 
caught sight of the furtive, inquiring glance of her teacher 
on her face before he could turn his eyes away ; she was 
pleased to note that his voice had a tone in addressing her 
that it had not when he spoke to the others ; and she took 
pleasure in perceiving that she was beyond question the 
favorite pupiL But Barbara was averse to building any 
castles in the air which she had small chance of being able 
to materialize. 

One evening, as she was going briskly toward home, she 
was overtaken by Mason, who walked with her up hill and 
down dale the whole long rough new-country road through 
the woods, carrying her books, and chatting about trivial 
things as he had never done before. He contrived, half in 
pleasantry, but quite in earnest, to praise her diligence, and 
even her mind. She had hardly ever thought of herself as 
having a mind. That Tom had such a gift she knew, and 
she understood how important it was to cultivate his abili- 
ties. But she was only Tom's sister. It seemed to her a 
fine thing, however, this having a mind of her own, and 
she thought a good deal about it afterward. 

When Hiram Mason reached the place where Barbara 
was accustomed to leave the main road, in order to reach 



84 THE GRAYSONS 

her home by a shorter path through a meadow, he got over 
the fence first and gave her his hand, though he wondered 
afterward that he had had the courage to do it. Barbara 
had climbed fences and trees too, for that matter, from her 
infancy, and she was in the habit of getting over this fence 
twice a day, without ever dreaming that she needed help. 
But a change had come over her in this two-miles' walk 
from school. For the first time, she felt a certain loneli- 
ness in her life, and a pleasure in being protected. She let 
Mason take her hand and help her to the top of the fence, 
though she could have climbed up much more nimbly if she 
had had both hands free to hold by. Hiram found it so 
pleasant helping her up, by holding her hand, that he took 
both her hands when she was ready to jump down on the 
meadow side of the fence, and then, by an involuntary im- 
pulse he retained her right hand in his left a bare moment 
longer than was necessary. A little ashamed, not so much 
of the feeling he had shown as of that he had concealed, ho 
finished his adieux abruptly, and, placing his hands on the 
top rail, vaulted clean over the fence again into the road. 
Then he thought of something else that he wanted to say 
about Barbara's new study of algebra, — something of no 
consequence at all, except in so far as it served to make 
Barbara turn and look at him once more. The odd twink- 
ling smile so habitual with him died out of his face, and he 
looked into hers with an eagerness that made her blush, 
but did not make her turn away. Blaming himself for 
what seemed to him imprudence, he left her at last and 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 85 

started back, only stopping on the next high groond to 
watch her figure as she hurried along through* the meadow 
grass, and across the brook, and then up the slope toward 
the house. 

There were several other evenings not very different from 
this one. The master would wait until all the pupils had 
gone, and then overtake Barbara. He solaced his con- 
science by carrying a book in his pocket, so as to study on 
the way back ; but he found a strange wandering of the 
mind in his endeavors to read a dead language after a walk 
with Barbara. He still held to his resolution, or to what 
was left of his resolution, not to entangle himself with an 
early engagement. What visions he indulged in, of projects 
to be carried out in a very short time after his graduation, 
belong to the secrets of his own imagination ; all his follies 
shall not be laid bare here. But to keep from committing 
himself too far, he drew the line at the boundary of Mrs. 
Grayson's farm, — the meadow fence. He gave himself a 
little grace, and drew the line on the inside of the fence. 
He was firmly resolved never to go quite home with his 
pupil, and never to call at her house. So long as he stopped 
at the fence, or within ten, or say twenty, or perhaps thirty, 
feet of it he felt reasonably safe. But he could not, in 
common civility, turn back until he had helped her to sur- 
mount this eight-rail fence; and indeed it was the great 
treat to which he always looked forward. There was a sort 
of permissible intimacy in such an attention. He guarded 

himself, however, against going beyond the limits of civil- 
8 



86 THE GRATS0N8 

ity — of kindly politeness — of polite friendship ; that was 
the precise phrase he hit on at last. But good resolutions 
often come to naught because of its being so very difficult 
to reckon beforehand with the involuntary and the uncon- 
trollable. The goodman of the house never knows at 
what moment the thief will surprise him. One evening 
Mason had taken especial pains to talk on only the most 
innocent and indifferent subjects, such as algebra. On this 
theme he was the schoolmaster, and he felt particularly 
secure against any expression of feeling, for a?, y, and z are 
unknown quantities that have no emotion in them. Though 
Barbara was yet in the rudiments of the study, he was try- 
ing to make her understand the general principles involved 
in the discussion of the famous problem of the lights. To 
make this clear he sat down once or twice on logs lying by 
the roadside, and wrote some characters on her slate show- 
ing the relation of a to & in any given case, while Barbara 
sat by and looked over his demonstrations. But in spite of 
these delays, they got to the fence before he had finished, 
and the rest was postponed for another time. It did n't 
matter so much about the lights after all, whether they were 
near together or far apart ; it does not matter to lights, but 
there are flames much affected by proximity. As Mason 
helped Barbara down from the fence, his passion, by some 
sudden assault, got the better of his prudence, and looking 
intently into the eyes shaded by the sun-bonnet, he came 
out with : 

" It 's all the world to a fellow like me to have such a 
scholai' as you are, Barbara." 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 87 

The words were mild enough ; but his eager manner and 
his air of confidence, as he stood in front of her sun-bonnet 
and spoke, with his face flushed, and in a low and unsteady 
voice, made his speech a half confession. Startled at this 
sudden downfall of his resolution, he got back over the 
fence and went straight away, without giving her a chance 
to say anything 5 without so much as uttering a civil good- 
bye. The precipitation of his retreat only served to lend 
the greater significance to his unpremeditated speech. 

Mrs. Grayson complained that there was " no sense in a 
girPs studyin' algebra, an' tryin' to know more 'n many a 
good schoolmaster ever knowed when I was a girl. Ever 
since Barbary 's been at that new-fangled study, it 's seemed 
like as if she 'd somehow 'r nuther gone deranged. She '11 
say supper 's ready when they ain't knife nur fork on the 
table ; an' she 's everlastinly losin' her knittin'-needles an' 
puttin' her thimble where she can't find it, or mislayin' her 
sun-bonnet. Ef her head was loose, she 'd be shore to leave 
that around somewheres, liker 'n not." 

If Hiram Mason's half-involuntary love-making had not 
brought Barbara unmeasured pleasure she would not have 
been the normal young woman that she was. He filled all 
her ideals, and went beyond the highest standard she had 
set up before she knew him. She was not the kind of a 
girl that one meets nowadays; at least, that one meets now- 
adays in novels. She did not have a lot of perfectly need- 
less and inconceivably fine-spun conscientious scruples to 
prevent the course of her fortune from running smoothly. 



88 THE GRATSOXS 

She did find in herself a drawing back from the future 
which Mason's partiality had brought within the range of 
her vision. But her scruple was only one of pride; she 
exaggerated the superiority of an educated family, such as 
she conceived his to be, and she reflected that the Graysons 
were simple country people. She felt in herself that she 
could never endure the mortification she would feel, as 
Hiram's wife, if the Masons should look down on her good 
but unlettered mother, and say or feel that Hiram had 
" married below him.'' If, now, Tom should come to some- 
thing, the equation would be made good. 

But the very day after Mason had spoken so warmly of 
the comfort he found in such a pupil was that disagreeable 
Saturday on which Tom had come home plucked in gam- 
bling, to ask for money enough to pay the debt he had in- 
curred in redeeming his clothes. Was it any wonder that 
Barbara spoke to him with severity when she found her 
cherished vision becoming an intangible illusion t Tom 
would make no career at all at this rate ; and to yield to 
Hiram Mason's wooing would now be to bring to him, not 
only the drawback of a family of humble breeding and 
slender education, but the disgrace of a rash, unsteady, and 
unsuccessful brother, whose adventures with gamblers would 
seem particularly disreputable to a minister's family. There 
was no good in thinking about it any more. Her pride 
could never bear to be " looked down on " by the family of 
her husband. It would be better to give it up at once — 
unless — she clung to this possibility — unless Tom should 



BARBARA'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS 



89 



turu out right after all. The necessity for surrendering so 
much imminent happiness did not surprise her. She had 
always had to forego, and no prospect of happiness could 
seem quite possible of realization to an imagination accus- 
tomed to contemplate a future of self-denial. None the 
less, the disappointment was most acute, for she must even 
give up the school, and try, by spinning yam, by knitting 
stockings, and by weaving jeans and linsey, to make up the 
money taken out of their little fund by Tom^s recklessness. 
On the next Monday, and the days following, she staid 
at home without sending any word to the schoolmaster. 
She held to a lurking hope that Tom's affairs might mend, 
and she be able, by some good luck, to resume her attend- 
ance on the school for a part of the remainder of the quar- 
ter. But when on Wednesday Tom's haggard face appeared 
at the door, and she read in it that all her schemes for him 
had miscarried, she knew that she must give up dreaming 
dreams which seemed too good to be innocent. There was 
nothing for her but to give herself to doing what could 
be done for Tom. It was lucky that the poor fellow did 
not suspect what it cost her to put a smooth face on his 
disasters. 



8^ 



IX 



BY THE LOOM 




N Monday, Mason saw with regret that Bar- 
bara was not at school. On Tuesday he felt 
solicitous, and would have made inquiry if it 
had not been for an impulse of secretiveness. 
By Wednesday he began to fear that his words 
spoken to her at the meadow fence had something to do with 
her absence. He questioned the past. He could not remem- 
ber that she had ever repelled his attentions, or that she had 
seemed displeased when he had spoken his fervent and unpre- 
meditated words. Aware that his bearing toward Bar- 
bara had attracted the observation of the school, he did not 
summon courage to ask about her until Thursday. Then 
when the voluble Mely McCord came to him before the be- 
ginning of the afternoon session, to ask how she should 
proceed to divide 130 by 9, he inquired if Barbara was ill. 

"No, I don't 'low she's sick," responded Mely. "I sh'd 
V thought she 'd tole you, 'f anybody, what 't wuz kep' 'er ^ ; 
and Mely laughed a malicious little snicker, which revealed 
her belief that the master was in confidential relations with 

90 



BY THE LOOM 91 

his algebra scholar. '' She thinks the worl' 'n' all of the school 
an' the master." Mely gasped a little as she ventured this 
thrust, and quickly added, "An* of algebray — she's that 
fond of algebray j but I sh'd thought she'd V tole you what 
kep' 'er, ur 'a' sen' choo word. But I low it 's got sumpin' to 
do weth the trouble in the family." 

Mely made what the old schoolmasters called a '' full stop" 
at this point, as though she considered it certain that Mason 
would know all about Barbara's affairs. 

" Trouble T What trouble T " asked the master. 

" Wy, I 'low'd you 'd 'a' knowed," said the teasing crea- 
ture, shaking her rusty ringlets, with a fluttering, half-sup- 
pressed amusement at the anxiety she had awakened in 
Mason's mind. " Hain' choo h-yeard about her brother ! " 

" No ; which brother T The one that 's in Moscow T " 

" W'y, lawsy, don' choo know 't she hain't got nary nuther 
one t The res' 's all dead an' buried long ago. Her brother 
Tom lost 'is sitooation along of gamblin' an' the like. They 
say he lost the boots offviz feet an' the coat offviz back." 
Here Mely had to give vent to her feelings in a hearty 
giggle ; Tom's losses seemed to her a joke of the best, and 
all the better that the master took it so seriously. " I low 
it's cut BarVry up more 'n a little. She sot sech store by 
Tom. An' he is smart, the smartest feller you 'd find fer 
books an' the like. But what 's the use a-bein' so smart an' 
then bein' sech a sim])le into the bargain t I say." 

Mason did not like to ask further questions about Bar- 
bara's family affairs. He could hardly bear to hear Mely 



92 THE GRATSONS 

canvass them in this unsympathetic way. But there was 
one more inquiry that he made about Tom. 

" Does he drink T " 

" Mighty leetle. I 'xpect he takes a drop ur two now an' 
then, jest f er company's sake when he 's a-cavortin' 'roun' weth 
the boys. But I 'low he hain't got no rale hankerin' fer the 
critter, an' he 's that fond of BarVry 'n' 'is mother, an' they 
're so sot on 'im, that he would n' noways like to git reg'lar 
drunk like. But he 's always a-gittin' into a bad crowd, an' 
tryin' some deviltry 'r nuther ; out uv one scrape an' into 
t'other, kinduh keerless like 5 head up an' never ketchin' 
sight 'v a stump tell he 's fell over it, kerthump, head over 
heels. His uncle 's been a-schoolin' 'im, an' lately he 's gone 
'n'put'im weth Squire Blackman to learn to be a lawyer; 
but now he's up 'n' sent him home fer a bad bargain. 
Ut's no go 't the law, an' he won't never stan' a farm, yeh 
know. Too high-sperrited." 

Possessed of a share of Mely McCord's stock of informa- 
tion about Barbara's troubles, Hiram Mason saw that his 
resolution against calling on his pupil at her own house 
would have to go the way of most of his other resolutions 
on this subject. He set himself to find arguments against 
keeping this one, but he was perfectly aware, all the time, 
that his going to the Graysons' would not depend on 
reasons at all. He reflected, however, that Barbara's 
trouble was a new and unforeseen condition. Besides, his 
regulative resolutions had been so far strained already that 
they were not worth the keeping. It is often thus in our 



BY THE LOOM 93 

dealings with ourselves; we argue from defection to in- 
dulgence. 

Mely McCord felt sure of having the master's company 
after school as far as she had to go on the road leading to 
the Graysons'. But he went another way to Pearson's, 
where he was boarding out the proportion due for three 
pupils. Mrs. Pearson had intermitted the usual diet of corn- 
dodgers, and had baked a skilletf ul of hot biscuits, in honor 
of the master ; she was a little piqued that he should absorb 
them, as he did, in a perfectly heartless way, and she even 
apologized for them, asserting that they were not so good 
as usual, in the vain hope that the master would wake up 
and contradict her. As soon as the early supper was over 
Hiram left the house, without saying anything of his des- 
tination. He took a ''short cut" across a small prairie, 
then through the woods, and across Butt's corn-field, until 
he came out on the road near the place at which he had 
several times helped Barbara over the fence. By her path 
through the meadow he reached the house just as the sum- 
mer twilight was making the vault of the sky seem deeper 
and mellowing all the tones in the landscape. In that walk 
Mason's mind had completely changed front. Why should 
he try to maintain a f ast-and-loose relation with Barbara T 
She was in need of Lis present sympathy and help. Impulses 
in his nature, the strength of which he had never suspected, 
were beating against the feeble barriers he had raised. Of 
what use was this battle, which might keep him miserable 
awhile longer, but which could end in but one way T As he 



04 THE QRATSOyS 

walked through the narrow meadow path, in the middle of 
which the heavy overhanging heads of timothy grass, now 
ready for the scythe, touched one another, so that his legs 
brushed them aside at every step, he cast away the last 
tatters of his old resolves. The dams were down ; the cur- 
rent might flow whither it listed. He would have it out with 
Barbara this very evening, and end the conflict. 

It is by some such only half -rational process that the most 
important questions of conduct are usually decided — some- 
times luckily ; in other cases, to the blighting of the whole 
life. Is it not rather a poor fist of a world after all, this in 
which we live, where the most critical and irrevocable de- 
cisions must be made while the inexperienced youth is tossed 
with gusts of passion and blinded by traditional prejudices 
or captivated by specious theories T The selection of wives 
and vocations, the two capital elements in human happiness 
and success, is generally guided by nothing higher than the 
caprice of those whose judgments are in the gristle. Often 
the whole course of life of the strong, clear-seeing man yet 
to come is changed forever by a boy's whim. The old alle- 
gorists painted the young man as playing chess with the 
devil ; but chess is a game of skill. What the young man 
plays is often a child's game of pitch and toss, cross or pile, 
heads or tails, for stakes of fearful magnitude. Luckily for 
Hiram, as you and I know from our present acquaintance 
with Barbara, nothing more disastrous than disappointment 
was likely to happen to him from his inability to keep his 
mortifying resolves. The abandonment of them had sim- 



BY THE LOOM. 95 

plifled his feelings and brought him present relief. When 
he knocked on the jamb of the open front door of the Gray- 
son farm-house, and was invited to come in by the mother, 
there was a wholeness in his feelings and purposes to which 
he had been a stranger for weeks. 

" BarVry,'' said Mrs. Grayson as she entered the kitchen, 
after giving Hiram a chair, "here 's the master come 
to see you. I 'low he thought you mought be sick ur 
sumpin'." 

Barbara sat perched on the loom-bench, with her back to 
the web she had been weaving. Just now she was peeling, 
quartering, and coring summer apples to dry for winter 
stores. She untied her apron and went from the kitchen 
into the sitting-room, where Mason was looking about, as 
was his habit, in a quizzical, half-amused way. He had 
noted the wide stone fire-place, the blackness of whose inte- 
rior was hidden by the bushy asparagus tops which filled 
it, and the wooden clock on the unpainted mantel-piece, 
which had a print of the death-bed of George Washington 
impaneled in its door. A stairway winding up in one cor- 
ner gave picturesqueness to the room; diagonally across 
from this was a high post bed ; there were some shuck-bot- 
tom chairs, a splint-bottom rocking-chair, and a bureau 
with a looking-glass on top. The floor was covered with a 
new rag-carpet, and the comfortable, home-like sentiment 
, excited in Hiram^s mind by the general aspect of the room 
was enhanced by a hearth cricket, which, in one of the 
crevices of the uneven flag-stones, was already emitting lit- 



96 THE GRATS0X8 

tie vibrant snatches like the black fiddler that he was, tun- 
ing up for an evening performance. 

The sight of Mason dissipated for the moment the clouds 
that darkened Barbara's thoughts j she saw blue sky for 
the first time since Tom's first return. It was a pleased and 
untroubled face that met his gaze when she extended her 
hand to him. 

" Howdy, Mr. Mason ! " 

Mason fixed his eyes on her in his odd fashion, half turn- 
ing his head aside, and regarding her diagonally. 

" Well, Barbara, you 're the lost sheep,'' was his greeting. 
" I was afraid you would n't come back to the flock if I did 
n't come into the wilderness and look you up." 

" There 's been such a lot of things to do this week," she 
answered hurriedly, " I did n't know how to get time to go 
to school." 

This was truthful, but it was far from being frank, and 
it was not on these terms that Mason wished to meet her. 
His first thought was to put her more at ease. 

" Can't we sit out on the porch T " he said ; " I 'm warm 
with walking." And he lifted two of the chairs and carried 
them to the covered porch. There would soon be no light 
outside but what came from the night sky, and what a dim 
candle in the sitting-room, when it should be lighted, might 
manage to spare through the open door. Hiram had a no- 
tion that in this obscurity he could coax Barbara out of the 
diplomatic mood into the plain indicative. But before they 
had sat down he had changed his plan. 



BY THE LOOM 97 

"Hold on,'^ he said, more to himself than to her; and 
added, " What were you doing when I came f " 

" Only peeling some apples to dry.'' 

"Let me help you; wo '11 have an apple-peeling all to 
ourselves." 

"No," said Barbara, hesitatingly; but Mason went 
through the sitting-room and, opening the kitchen door, 
thrust his head through and said : 

"May n't I sit out there and help Barbara peel apples, 
Mrs. Grayson t " 

" You may do what you like, Mr. Mason," said the old 
lady, pleased with his familiarity ; " but peelin' apples ain't 
jest the kind of work to set a schoolmaster at." 

" Schoolmasters a'n't all of them so good for nothing as 
you think. Come on, Barbara, a little apple-peeling will 
make it seem like home to me ; and this living 'round in 
other people's houses has made me homesick." 

Barbara came out and took her old place on the loom- 
bench, beside the great three-peck basket of yellow apples. 
Her seat raised her considerably higher than Mason, who 
occupied a low chair. In front of Barbara was another 
chair, on which sat a pan to hold the quarters of apples 
when prepared for drying; on one of the rungs of this 
Barbara supported her feet. The candle which Mrs. Gray- 
son lighted shed a dim yellow light from one end of the 
high smoke-blackened mantel-shelf, which extended across 
the chimney above the cavernous kitchen fire-place. The 

joists of the loft were of heavy logs, and these, and the 
9 



98 THE GRATS0N8 

boards which overlaid them, and all the woodwork about 
this kitchen, were softened and sombered by the smoke 
that had escaped from the great, rude chimney; for the 
kitchen was the original log-cabin built when Tom's father, 
fresh from Maryland, had fli'st settled on the new farm ; 
the rest of the house had grown from this kernel. 

The mother, who had not dreamed of any relation be- 
tween Barbara and Hiram Mason more friendly than that 
of master and pupil, was a little surprised at the apparently 
advanced stage of their acquaintance ; but she liked it, be- 
cause it showed that the schoolmaster was not " stuck up," 
and that he understood that " our Barb'ry " was no common 
girl. Tom looked in at the open outside door of the kit- 
chen after a while, and was pleased. " Barb deserved a nice 
beau if ever anybody did,'' he reflected, and it might keep 
her from feeling so bad over his own failures. Not wish- 
ing to intrude, and wearied to exhaustion with his first day 
of farm-work since his return, he went around to the front 
door and through the sitting-room upstairs to bed. When 
the mother had finished "putting things to rights" she 
went into the sitting-room, and the apple-peelers were left 
with only the loom, the reel, and the winding-blades for 
witnesses. 

They talked of school, of their studies, and of many 
other things until the great basket of apples began to grow 
empty while the basket of parings and corings was full. 
The pan of apple-quarters having overflowed had been re- 
placed by a pail, which was also nearly full, when, after a 



BY THE LOOM 99 

playful scuffle of bauds in the basket, Hiram secured tbo 
last apple and peeled it. Then laying down his knife, he 
asked : 

" You '11 be ba<;k at school next weekf 

Barbara had been dreading this inquiry. She wished 
Mason had not asked it. She had heartily enjoyed his 
society while they talked of things indifferent, but the 
question brought her suddenly and painfully back into the 
region of her disappointment and perplexities. 

" I 'm afraid I can't come any more. Things have n't 
gone right with us." The wide spaces between her words 
indicated to her companion the effort it cost to allude to 
her affairs. 

Mason was more than ever puzzled. By what means 
could he establish such a ground of confidence between 
them as would enable him to enter into her difficulties and 
give her, at the least, the help of his sympathy and coun- 
sel t There seemed no way so good as that by direct ap- 
proach. 

" Barbara," he said, drawing his chair nearer to the loom- 
bench and leaning forward toward her, " won't you please 
tell me about your affairs, if — if you can do itt I don't 
want to intrude, but why can't you let me be your best 
friend and — help you if I can t" 

This speech had a different effect from what Mason had 
intended. Barbara's pride resented an offer of help from 
him. Of all things, she did not wish to be pitied by the 
man she was beginning to love. Ho would always think of 



100 THE GRAYSONS 

her as lower than himself, and she had too much pride to 
relish anything like the r61e of Cophetua's beggar maid. 

'^ I can't do it; Mr. Mason ; there 's nothing anybody can 
do." She spoke with her eyes downcast. Having ventured 
so much and gained nothing, Mason leaned back in his 
chair and turned his head about to what a photographer 
would call a " three-quarters position," and looked at Bar- 
bara from under his brows without saying anj'thing more. 
He was like a pilot waiting for the fog to lift. This silent 
regard made Barbara uneasy. She could not help feeling a 
certain appreciation of his desire to help her, however dis- 
agreeable it might be to her feelings. Perhaps she was 
wrong to repel his confidence so abruptly. 

'* I suppose you know about poor Tom T " she said, mak- 
ing so much concession to his kindness, but half swallow- 
ing the rapidly spoken words. 

" Yes," said Hiram ; " I heard he had got into a scrape 
such as many a bright boy gets into. A village like Mos- 
cow is a hard place for a boy raised in the country. But 
he '11 pull out of that." 

It lifted a weight from Barbara's mind that Mason did 
not take a too serious view of Tom. She wished, however, 
that he would not look at her so long in that askance 
fashion. 

" Did the trouble cost you much money t" he ventured 
to inquire after a while. 

" Well, no, not much for some folks, but a good deal for 
us; we're rather poor, you know." There is a pride that 



BY THE LOOM 101 

conceals poverty; there is a greater pride that makes haste 
to declare it, feeling that only hidden poverty is shameful. 
'' You know father was a smart man in some ways," Bar- 
bara continued, '' but he had n't any knack. He lost most 
of his money before he came to Illinois; and then when 
he got here he made the mistake, that so many made, of 
settling in the timber, though very little of the prairie 
had been taken up yet. If he had n't been afraid of the 
winters on the prairie, we might have been pretty well oflf ; 
but it 's been a hard struggle opening a farm in the woods. 
Then we have had nothing but misfortune. My father died 
of a congestive chUl, and then my three brothers and my 
sister died, and Tom and I are all that 's left to mother. 
And there are doctor's bUls to pay yet, and a little debt on 
the farm." 

" Yes, yes,'' said Hiram, wounded in thinking of the pain 
he was giving Barbara in forcing her to speak thus frankly 
of the family troubles. " I know what it is. Poverty and 
I are old acquaintances ; regular old cronies. She 's going 
to stand by my side till I graduate, anyhow ; but as I have 
known her ever since I was bom, I can afford to laugh in 
her face. There 's nothing like being used to a thing." 

Barbara made no reply to this. Mason sat and looked at 
her awhile in silence. There was no good in trying to help 
her on his present footing. He leaned forward, resting his 
elbow on the loom-bench by her side. 

" Look here, Barbara," he said, with abrupt decision, "let's, 

you and me, go in partnership with our poverty some 
9* 



102 THE ORAYSONS 

day, and see what 'U come of it. I suppose, so far as money 
is concerned, the equations would be about equal without 
the trouble of figuring it out." 

Barbara looked at her hands in her lap with her eyes out 
of focus, and made no reply. After a while Hiram spoke 
again. 

" Did I — make you mad, Barbara T ^ He used the Word 
''mad" in the sense attached to it in that interior country, 
meaning angry. 

" No, not mad," said Barbara. " Not that — but — I don't 
know what to say. I don't believe what you propose can 
ever be." 

Mason waited for her to explain herself, but she did not 
seem to be able to get her own consent. At length he got 
up and went to the mantel-piece and took down Barbara's 
slate. 

''Let's talk about algebra awhile," he said. 

Barbara was fond enough of algebra, but it seemed droll 

that Mason, with an unsettled proposition of marriage on 

hand, should revert to his favorite study. She could not 

see what he was writing, but when he passed the slate to 

her, she read: 

a = another lover. 

6= objections to H. Mason. 

e a interfering cironmstances. 

re a= a + 6+0. 

"Now,^ said Mason, when she looked up, " I 'd like you to 
help me to get the exact value of x in this little equation. 
It 's a kind of fortune-telling by algebra. We must proceed 



BY THE LOOM 103 

by elimination ; you may strike out such of the letters on 
the right side of the last equation as do not count for any- 
thing.^ 

But instead of proceeding as the master suggested, Bar- 
bara^ whose reserve was partiy dissipated by her amusement, 
took the pencil that he offered her, and after a moment's 

reflection wrote below : 

a = 

6 = 

x^c 

'' I never saw an equation more to my taste,'' said Hiram. 
'' If it's only circumstances, then circumstances and I are 
going to fight it out. Tou think there are things that will 
keep us from making an equation between Barbara and 
Hiram t " 

" There wouldn't be any equation," she said, looking out 
of half -closed eyelids, as she always did when speaking with 
feeling. " Your family is an educated one, and your father 
and mother would n't approve of us. Mother never had any 
chance to learn, and her talk is very old-fashioned, but she 's 
just as good as good can be, all the same. Tom's unsteady ; 
I hope he '11 get over that yet; but your father and mother 
and your sisters would n't like it." 

" Yes, they would, if they knew you," said Mason, with 
enthusiasm ; '' and, besides, I don't see that I 'm bound to 
get their consent" 

" But that would n't change matters," persisted Barbara, 
despondingly. " K they did n't like it, it would n't be nice." 

" Don't you bother about my happiness, Barbara. If I 



104 THE GBAYSOXS 

have you, do you think anything else will trouble met' 
He got up and snuffed the candle with his fingers like the 
brave man that he was. 

'' I 'm not bothering about you at all," said Barbara. 
'^ I 'm not so good as you think I am. I let you take care 
of yourself in this matter; you 're strong, and such things 
won't worry you." She was picking at her dress as she 
spoke. "Ever since you said what you did when you 
helped me over the fence last," — Barbara took a long 
breath as she thought of that scene ; she heA often retraced 
all its details in her memory, — " I 've known that you felt 
so toward me that you would face any thing. But I — I 
coidd n't bear it if your folks should look down on me and 
I be — your wife." It was hard to say the last words ; they 
sounded strangely, and when they were uttered, the sound of 
them put her into a trepidation not altogether disagreeable. 

" Look down on you f " said Hiram, with a vehemence 
Barbara heA never known him to manifest before. " Do 
you think my folks are such idiots f They don't meet a 
person like you often enough to get the habit of looking 
down on such." 

" But you don't know women folks," said Barbara. 

" I know my family better than you do, and you Ve got 
mighty curious notions about them and about yourself. 
You 've always lived here in the woods, and you dont know 
what you 're worth." 

He lifted the empty apple-basket out of the way and sat 
down by her. 



BY THE LOOM 105 

" Now, Barbara, you say you know how I feel toward you. 
Tou are the girl of all girls in the world for me. And now 
you won't spurn me, will you*! ^ he said entreatingly. 

Barbara's Ups quivered and she seemed about to lose con- 
trol of herself. However, after a little period of silence 
and struggle, she suppressed her feelings sufficiently to 
speak: 

" I could n't spurn you,'' she said. Then, after another 
pause : " Maybe you don't care any more for me than I do 
for you. But I 'm in such trouble — that I can't tell what 
to say. Won't you wait and give me a little time t Things 
may be better after a while." 

'^How long shall I stay awayf A weekf" Mason's 
voice had a note of protest in it. 

'' Don't be hurt," she said, lifting her eyes timidly to his. 
^' But I 'm in such a hard place. Let me have two weeks 
or so to think about it, and see how things are going to 
turn." It was not that Barbara saw any chance for a 
change of circumstances, but that she could not resolve to 
decide the question either way, and wished to escape from 
her present perplexity by postponement. 

" Just as you say," said Mason, regretfully ; " but I tell 
you, Barbara, it 's two weeks of dead lost time." 

Then he got up and held out his hand to her. 

"Gk)od-bye, Barbara." 

" Good-bye, Mr. Mason." 

" Oh, call me Hiram ! It 's more friendly, and you call 
all the other young men by theii* first names." 



100 



THE OR AT SONS 



" But you he the master.^ 

" I 'm not the master of you, that 's clear. Besides, you 
Ve left schooL" He was holding her hand in gentle protest 
all this time. 

"Well, good-bye — Hiram ! " said Barbara, with a visible 
effort which ended in a little laugh. 

Mason let go of her hand and turned abruptly and 
walked out of the door, and then swiftly down the meadow 
path. Barbara stood and looked after him as long as she 
could see his form ; then she slowly shut and latched the 
kitchen door and came and covered with ashes the remain- 
ing embers of the fire, and took the candle from the mantel- 
piece and went through the now vacant sitting-room to her 
chamber above. 



THE AFFAIR AT TIMBER CREEK CAHP MEETINO 




SHBN' Tom GrayBon found himself suddenly 
j stranded on the farmstead in Hubbard Towr- 
j ship he went to work to learn ^;ain the arta 
\ half forgotten during his three-years' absence 
in Moscow. It was necessary to put his soft hands to 
the plow, and to bum his fair face in the hot tma of the 
hay-fleld. With characteristic heedlessness of results he 
set out, OQ the very first day after his return, to mow 
alongside the stalwart hired man, Bob McCord, the father 
of Mely. Bob lived in a httle cabin not far from the Gray- 
son place, and since Tom left the farm he had done most of 
the work for Mrs. Grayson. He was commonly known as 
" Big Bob," because he had a half-brother of sinister birth 
who was older than himself, but a small man, and who for 
distinction was " Little Bob." Big Bob fulfilled his name 
in every dimension. His chest was deep, his arms were 
gigantic in their muscularity, and no man had ever seen liis 
legs show signs of exhaustion. His immense muscles were 
softened in outline by a certain moderate rotundity ; his 



108 THE GRAYS0N8 

well-distributed adipose was only one of many indications 
of his extraordinary physical thrif tiness. In more than one 
stand-np fight he had demonstrated his right to the title of 
champion of the county. Yet he was a boyishly good- 
natured man, with no desire to hurt anybody, and he never 
fought from choice. But every rising fisticuflfer within half 
a hundred miles round had heard of Bob's strength, and the 
more ambitious of these hcwl felt bound to " dare '' him. It 
was not consonant with the honor of such a man as Bob to 
'' take a dare ^) so against first one and then another aspiring 
hero he had fought, until at length there was none that ven- 
tured any more to " give a dare " to the victor of so many 
battles. His physical perfections were not limited to mere 
bull strength : no man had a keener eye or a steadier hand ; 
none could send a rifle-ball to its mark with a more unerring 
aim. Hfiul he lived in the days of the Saxon invasion of 
England, McCord would have stood high on the list of those 
renowned for exploits of strength and daring, the very dar- 
ling hero of the minstrel. Our own Indian wars of the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries brought renown to just 
such men as he, semi-barbarian path-makers for the advance 
of civilization. He had lagged a generation late. In the 
peaceful time, when strength of muscle was secondary to 
mental power, and when a sure aim was no longer important 
for the defense of one's life, nor the chief means for winning 
one's meat, the powerful Bob McCord saw degenerate men, 
whom he could have held at arms-length, prevail over him 
in the struggle for subsistence. For though he was capable 



THE AFFAIR AT TIMBER CREEK CAMP MEETING 109 

of hard work he could never endure steady application ; his 
nature was under mortgage to adventurous ancestors^ the 
ancient Indian-fighters and scouts of the Appalachian coun- 
try, and those more remote forefathers, the untamed emi- 
grantswhohadbeenalmostexpelled from the Scottish border 
in the time of the Stuarts, to help resettle the devastated 
north of Ireland, to say nothing of the yet wilder Irish 
women with whom they had mated. Nothing less than the 
sound of the cup scraping on the bottom of the family meal- 
box would impel Bob to work. Every wind that came from 
the great sea of grass to the westward brought him the whir 
of the wings of prairie-hens ; dreams of bear-hunting filled 
his mind whenever he looked into the recesses of the woods. 
At sight of the rising moon his hunter's soul imagined the in- 
numerable deer which at that hour come from their coverts 
to graze on the prairies. Every stream tantalized him with 
the thought of darting perch, and great prowling cat-fish 
hidden beneath its surface, and challenging him to catch 
them if he could. If, as we are taught to believe, the man- 
liness of the English aristocracy and that of the American 
apery is only kept alive by outdoor sports, how much their 
superior in surplus manhood must such a man as Bob Mc- 
Cord be I In his estimation no days were counted a part of 
human life except those passed in circumventing and taking 
the wild creatures of the woods or the prairie, and those 
others spent in the rude fun of musters, barbecues, elections, 
com-shuckings, wood-choppings, and like assemblages, 

where draughts from a generous big-bellied bottle, with a 
10 



110 THE ORAYSOSS 

twisted necky alternated with athletic feats, practical jokes, 
and tales as rude as the most unblushing of those told by 
pious pilgrims to Canterbury in the old religious time. 

It was alongside this son of Anak that Tom set himself 
to do a full day's work at the start. The severity of labor 
accorded well with his pungent feeling of penitence. Big 
Bob regarded him as he might any other infant, not un- 
kindly ; he even had a notion that the Widow Grayson and 
her children were in some sense under his care, and he did 
not wish any harm to come to the boy, but a practical joke 
was too good a thing to be missed. For two hours and a 
half, on that morning of Tom's appearance in the field with 
a scythe. Bob did not once stop to take the usual rests. 
Tom felt inevitable exhaustion coming on, though he cut a 
much narrower swath than his companion. McCord's her- 
culean right knee was bare, having that morning forced 
itself through his much-bepatched trousers of butternut- 
dyed cotton cloth. While swinging his wider-sweeping 
scjiihe at a desperate rate, he kept telling Tom stories of 
adventure and the well-worn joe-millers of the log-cabin 
firesides, never seeming to notice the poor fellow's breath- 
less endeavors to keep up or his ever-narrowing swath. 
Only when at length he turned and looked at Tom's face and 
perceived that the persistency of his will might carry him 
too far, he said, as with his scythe he picked some bunches 
, of good grass from the edge of an elder patch and cast 
a wistful glance at the jug standing in a cool fence comer : 

" Looky h-yer, Tom, you 're a-gittin* kind-uh white-like 



THE AFFAIE AT TIMBER CREEK CAMP MEETING 111 

about the gills, un ^f you try to keep up weth me, yer hide 
'U be on the fence afore night.'' 

"I know that," said Tom, who found himself so thor- 
oughly beaten that there was no use in denying it. 

" Well, hang yer scythe on that air red-haw over there 
un take a leetle rest, un then try a pitch-fork awhile. I 
lowed I 'd see what sort uv stuff you 've got, seein 's you 
wuz so almighty gritty. A bigger man 'n you could n't 
hold agin me " ; and Bob let the amusement he felt at Tom's 
discomfiture escape in a long hearty chuckle, rising at 
length into a loud laugh, as he reversed his scythe and fell 
to whetting it, making the neighboring woods ring with 
the tune he beat on the resonant metal, — a kind of accom- 
paniment to the briskness of his spirit. 

And now Barbara appeared bringiDg the snack that was 
commonly served to the mowers in the forenoon. Bob 
hung up his scythe, and, having taken some whisky, joined 
the exhausted Tom under the shady boughs of a black wal- 
nut. Barbara uncovered her basket, which contained an 
apple-pie to be divided between the two and a bottle of 
sweet milk. Tom had stretched himself in sheer exhaustion 
on a swath of hay. 

"You foolish boy," said Barbara. "You 've gone at 
your work too brash. You ought to be ashamed of your- 
self. Here, take some of this pie ; and don't you work so 
hard the rest of the day." 

" Tom," said Bob, speaking with his mouth full of pie, 
" 'f I had the eddication you 've got, you would n't ketch 



112 THE GRAY SONS 

mc in this yere hot sun. I 'd take a school. What 's eddi- 
cation good fer, anyhow, ef 't ain't to git a feller out uli 
the hot sun t ^ 

But for the present Tom resolved to stick faithfully to 
his toil As the days wore on, and he became accustomed 
to the strain, he found the work a sedative ; he was usually 
too tired to think much of his disappointment. Only the 
face of Rachel Albaugh haunted his visions in lonely hours, 
and at times a rush of indignant feeling towards George 
Lockwood disturbed his quiet. 

In the early days of August there came a time of com- 
parative leisure. The summer harvests were over, and the 
fields of tall corn had been " laid by " after the last plow- 
ing. Then Illinois had a breathing spell ; and shutting up 
its house, and hitching up its horse, and taking all the 
children, it went to visit its " relations," staying a week at 
a place. Farmers frequented the town to meet old friends 
and get the better of them in swapping horses ; and in this 
time of relaxation came the season of Baptist Associations 
and Methodist Camp-meetings and two-days' Basket Meet- 
ings — jolly religious picnics, where you could attend to 
your soul's salvation and eat " roas'in' ears " with old friends 
in the thronged recesses of the forests, among a people who 
were perhaps as gregarious as any the world has ever pro- 
duced. Children looked forward to this gypsying with 
eagerness, and adults gave themselves over to it with the 
abandon of children. What night-scenes there were! 
Within the oval of tents at a camp-meeting two great plat- 



TOE AFFAIR AT TIMBER CREEK CAMP MEETING 113 

forms were raised on posts six or eight feet high and cov- 
ered with earth ; on these were built blazing bonfires, illumi- 
nating all the space inclosed by the tents and occupied by 
the enthusiastic assembly, which, as one great chorus, made 
the wide forest vocal with a tide of joyous or pathetic song. 
But there were two poles to the magnetism of a camp-meet- 
ing. In the region of outer blackness, quite beyond the 
reach of auy illumination from platform bonfires or pulpit 
eloquence, there were also assemblies of those who were 
attracted by the excitement, but to whom the religious in- 
fluences were a centrifugal force. Here jollity and all con- 
ceivable deviltry rejoiced also in a meet companionship. 

The Great Union Gamp-Meeting was held in the first half 
of August on the Timber Creek camp-ground, only a mile 
and a half from the Grayson place. The mother and Bar- 
bara went every evening and came back with accounts of 
the attendance, of the old friends encountered, and of the 
sermons of favorite preachers. They told how " powerfully ^ 
the elder had preached, and how the eloquent young preacher, 
who was junior on the next circuit, had carried all before 
him in a pathetic exhortation. But Tom showed no desire 
to attend. He was slowly sinking into a depression quite 
unusual with him. He had been accustomed to the excite- 
ment of the town, and the prospect of a life of dull routine 
on a farm ate into his spirit like a biting rust. Barbara 
amused him with stories of the camp-meeting ; she told him 
of the eccentric German exhorter whose broken English she 
mimicked, and of the woman she had heard relate in a mom- 



114 THE GRAYS0N8 

ing " speaking-meeting " that, when convinced of the sin of 
wearing jewelry, she had immediately taken off her ear-rings 
and given them to her sister. These things lightened his 
spirit but for a moment ; he would relapse soon into the 
same state of mental lassitude, or more acute melancholy. 
Barbara endeavored to cheer him with projects ; ho could 
take a school the next winter, and with the money earned 
pay his board somewhere in town and take up the study of 
law again. But all of Barbara's projects were moderate and 
took full account of difficulties. Tom had little heart for a 
process that demanded plodding and patient waiting; nor 
did any of Barbara's suggestions hold out any prospect of 
his recovering his ground with Rachel, which was the thing 
he most desired. 

One evening, as he finished a supper which he had eaten 
with little relish and in silence, ho pushed back his chair 
and sat moodily looking into the black cave of the kitchen 
fire-place, where the embers were smoldering under the 
ashes. Then when his mother hfiul left the kitchen, and 
Barbara was clearing away the plates, he said : 

" The more I think of it, the worse I feel about George 
Lockwood. The tricky villain got me into that scrape and 
then told all about it where he knew it would do me the 
most harm. I 'd just like to shoot him." 

" You'd better shoot him and get yourself hanged ! " Siiid 
Barbara with impatience. ^^ That would mend matters, 
would n't it t " 

" 'T would n't matter much to me," said Tom. " This 



THE AFFAIR AT TIMBER CREEK CAMP MEETING 115 

country life does n't suit me 5 I 'd just as well bo out of it, 
and they do say hanging is an easy way of dying." This 
last was spoken with a grim smile. ^ 

" I suppose you don't think of us/^ said Barbara. 

" I 'm more trouble than good to you and mother." 

" And now if you would only commit a crime " — Barbara 
was looking at him with a concentrated gaze — '^ that would 
put an end to all mother's sorrows ; she would soon die in 
torture, and I would be left alone in the world to be pointed 
at by people who would say in a whisper : ' That 's the sister 
of the fellow that was hanged.'" And Barbara caught her 
breath with a little gasp as she turned away. 

" Oh, don't talk that way, Barb 1 Of course I don't mean 
to do anything of the sort. It 's a kind of relief to talk 
sometimes, and I do feel bitter enough." 

Barbara turned sharply on him again and said : '' That 's 
just the way to get to be a murderer — keep stirring up your 
spite. After a while the time 'U come when you can't con- 
trol yourself, may be, and then you 11 do something that 
you only meant to think about." 

Tom shuddered a little and, feeling uncomfortable under 
Barbara's gaze, got up and started away. But Barbara 
followed him and caught hold of his arm, and pulled him 
around till she could look in his face, and said, with more 
feeling than she liked to show : 

" Look here, Tom ! Give me your word and honor that 
you 11 put all such thoughts out of your mind." 

" Of course I will. Sis, if you think there 's any danger." 



116 THE GRAY SONS 

" And come and go over to the camp-meeting to-night 
with mother and me. It 'U do you good to see somebody 
besides the cows." 

"All right," said Tom, shaking himself to get rid of his 
evil spirit, and remembering, as he went out to harness old 
Blaze-face to the wagon, that he would stand a chance of 
catching a glimpse of Rachel in the light of the torches. 

The preaching was vigorous and stirring, and the ex- 
horter, who came after the preacher, told many pathetic 
stories, which deeply moved a people always eager to be ex- 
cited. The weird scene no doubt contributed by its spec- 
tacular effect to increase the emotion. The bonfires on the 
platforms illuminated the circle of white tents, which stood 
out against the wall of deep blackness in the forest behind ; 
the light mounted a hundred feet and more through 
the thick branches of lofty beech and maple trees, and was 
reflected from the under side of leaves quivering in the 
breeze. The boughs and foliage, illuminated from below, 
had an unreal and unworldly aspect. No imagery of the 
preacher could make the threatened outer darkness of the 
lost so weird to the imagination as this scene, in which the 
company of simple-minded people found themselves in the 
presence of a savage Nature, and in a sphere of light bounded 
on every hand by a blackness as of darkness primeval. 

Tom paid little attention to the eloquence of the preacher 
or to the tearful words of him who came after. At first he 
was interested and even excited by the scene ; he watched 
the flickering of the great shadows of the tree trunks as 



THE AFFAIR AT TIMBER CREEK CAMP MEETING 117 

the platform fires rose and fell ; but presently lie set him- 
self to searching under the large straw bonnets for a face. 
He knew well that the sight of that face could not make 
him happy^ but he seemed driven by some evil impulse to 
seek for it. If Rachel was there he did not find her. When 
the exhorter hfiul closed his artless string of disconnected 
anecdotes with an equally artless appeal, and a hymn was 
announced, Tom whispered to Barbara that he would go 
and see if the horse was all right, and would meet her at 
the door of the Mount Zion tent when meeting should '' let 
out." Then as the congregation rose, he went out by a 
passage between two of the tents into the woods. The 
" exercises " lasted a full hour longer, and it was half -past 
ten before the presiding elder gave the benediction. Bar- 
bara and her mother went to the door of the Mount Zion 
tent, where they stood watching the moving people and 
waiting for Tom. Mely McCord, who was to ride home 
with them, was talking in her fluent way to Barbara when 
an excited man rushed into the space within the tents, and, 
finding himself obstructed by the groups of people in the 
aisles, ran hurriedly across the boards that served for back- 
less benches until he reached the great rude pulpit. He 
addressed a word to the white-haired presiding elder, who 
was at that moment standing on the steps of the stand, 
engaged in shaking hands with old friends from all parts 
of his district. Then the new-comer seized the tin horn 
that hung against a tree, and which was used to call the 
people to meeting. With this in his hand he mounted the 



118 THE GRAY SONS 

rude board rostrum and blew a long, harsh blast. Part of 
the people out of curiosity had stopped talking when he 
made his appearance, and when the strident tin horn 
ceased, there was a momentary murmur and then the still- 
ness of death, except for confused cries of excitement in 
the remote outer regions, which now became audible. Then 
the man on the platform said, in a breathless voice : 

" A man has been killed in the woods outside of the camp- 
ground. The murderer has fled. The sheriff is wanted 1 " 

" Here he is I '^ cried some voices, and the sheriff stood up 
on a bench and waved his hand to the messenger, who 
came down and communicated in a few words what he 
knew of the murder. The sheriff then hurriedly departed. 

'* Sit down there, mother,'^ gasped Barbara. " Mely, you 
stay by mother.'' 

Then Barbara's slight form pushed through the crowd, 
until her progress was arrested by a dense knot of eager 
inquirers that encompassed the man who had brought the 
news. It was quite impossible to get within twenty feet of 
him, or to hear anything he was saying ; but bits of intelli- 
gence percolated through the layers of humanity that en- 
veloped him. Barbara could only wait and listen. At last 
a man a little nearer the radiating center said in reply to 
the query of one who stood next to her : 

" It 's George Lockwood, that clerks for Wooden & Sny- 
der down 't Moscow, that is killed, but I can't find out who 
't wuz done it." 

Barbara's heart stood still within her for a moment. 



THE AFFAIR AT TIMBER CREEK CAMP MEETING 119 

Then dreading to hear more, she pushed out of the ever- 
increasing crowd and reached her mother. 

" Come, mother j we must get home quick." 

"What 's the matter, BarVry! Who 's killed!'^ asked 
Mely McCord. 

" I don't know anything, only we mmt get home. Quick, 
mother ! " she was impelled by instinct to save her mother 
as long as possible from the shock she felt impending. But 
it was of no use. 

"What 's the matter, Sam; can you make outt" cried a 
man near her to one just emerging from the crowd about 
the messenger. 

" Wy, they say as Tom Grayson 's shot an' killed a feller 
from Moscow, an' Tom 's made off, an' can't bo found. 
They 's talk of lynchin' him." 

Mrs. Grayson's lips moved; she tried to speak, but in 
vain ; the sudden blow had blanched her face and paralyzed 
her speech. It was pitiable to see her ineffectual effort to 
regain control of herself. At length she sank down on a 
shuck-bottom chair by the door of the tent. 

" Yer ^s some smellin^-saJts," said a woman standing by, 
and she thrust forward her leathery hand holding an un- 
corked bottle of ammonia. 

" He did n^t do it," murmured Mrs. Grayson, when she 
had revived a little. •' Our Tommy would n't do sech a 
thing. Go up there," — and she pointed to the pulpit, — 
" you g9 up there, BarVry, an' tell the folks 't our Tommy 
never done it." 



120 



THE OBAYSONS 



" Come, mother ; let 's go home/' said Barbara faintly, 
for all her energy had gone now. 

" I '11 go with you," said Mely. 

Bat Mrs. Grayson did not wish to go ; she was intent on 
staying in order to tell the folks that Tommy " never, never 
done sech a thing." 

She yielded at length to the gentle compulsion of Barbara 
and Mely and the neighbors who gathered about, and got 
into the wagon. Mely, who knew every inch of the road, 
took the reins, and drove slowly toward the Grayson house, 
picking a way among the stumps, roots, and holes of the 
new road. 




FBIGNDS IN THE NIGHT 

SHE ride seemed to Barbara almost interminable. 

T^^ If sheoooldhaveleftherhalf-distractedmother 
^J§ slie would have got ont of the wagon and ran 
I tliroogh the fields, in hope of finding Tom and 
knowing from him the whole trath, and making np her 
mind what was to be done. Wben at length the wagon 
reached the gate in front of the Qrayson house, Bob 
McCord was in /oiting. He had heard that a bear had been 
seen on Broad Kan, and had left the eamp-meeting early, 
intent on a depa rtnre before daylight in pnrsnit of that 
" varmint." He had known nothing of the shooting, bnt he 
told Barbara that, when he came near the Qrayson house, 
he had seen Tom ran across the road and into the house, — 
and that Tom came out again almost at once, and reached 
the gate in time to meet the sherifC and give himself up. 
The sheriff had dismounted one of the men with him, and 
putting Tom in the saddle they had gone toward Moscow 
on a gallop. Bob was nt near enough to hear what Tom hod 
said when the sheriff took him ; bnt knowing that something 
mnst be wrong, he had waited for the return of the wagon. 

11 



122 THE GRATSOXS 

It was some relief to the tension of Barbara's feelings to 
know that Tom was now in the hands of the lawful authori- 
ties and well on his way to Moscow, where he would be out 
of the reach of the angry crowd that was surging to and fro 
around the camp-meeting. 

But there followed the long night of uncertainty. The 
mother sat moaning in her chair, only rousing herself enough 
now and then to assure some newly arrived neighbor that 
" poor Tom never done it.'' Barbara confided only to Mely 
McCord the very faint hope she entertained that Tom was 
not guilty. She could n't believe that he would break his 
solemn promise, made that very evening. But in her secret 
heart she could not get over the fact that George Lockwood 
was lying in the woods stark and dead, and no one was so 
likely to have killed him as her impetuous brother. 

About 1 o'clock, the dreadful monotony of the night was 
dreadfully broken by the arrival of the deputy-sheriff. He 
spoke in an unsympathetic, official voice, but in a manner 
externally respectful. He must search Tom's room; and 
so, taking a candle, he went to the room alone, and soon 
came back bringing an old-fashioned single-barrel, flint-lock 
pistol, of the kind in use in the early part of the century. 
It had belonged to Tom's father, and the officer had f oimd 
it in one of the drawers in the room. Barbara sat down and 
shut her eyes as the deputy passed through the sitting-room 
with the weapon, but Mrs. Grayson called the officer to her. 

" I say. Mister — I don't know your name. Let me speak 
to you," 



FRIENDS IN THE NIGHT 123 

'' Yes, ma'am,'' said the man, " My name 's Markham " ; 
and he came and stood near her. 

" Air you the son of Lijy Markham T ^ Mrs. Grayson 
always identified people by recalling their filiation, and she 
could not resist this genealogical tendency in her mind even 
in the hour of sorest trial. 

" Yes," said the officer. 

" Well, now, what I want to say is that Tommy did n't 
kill that man. I 'm his mother, an' I had ought to know, an' I 
tell yeh so. You had n't ought to 'a' took 'im up f er what 
he did n't do." 

Markham was puzzled to know what to reply, but he 
answered presently : 

" Well, the court '11 find out about it, you know, Mrs. 
Grayson." The man's official stiffness was a little softened 
by the tones of her heart-broken voice. 

Barbara never could tell how she got through the hours 
from half -past 10 to 3 o'clock. Neighbors were coming and 
going — some from a desire to be helpful, others from 
curiosity, but Mely remained with them. Bob McCord was 
too faithful to leave the Graysons when he might be needed 
but it was impossible for him to remain awake from mere 
sympathy. When Markham was gone, he lay down on the 
end of the porch farthest from the door, and slept the sleep 
of the man of the Bronze Age. His fidelity was like that 
of a great dog — he gave himself no anxiety, but ho was 
ready when wanted. 

At 3 o'clock Barbara said to Mely : '^ I can't stand it a 



124 THE GRJYSOXS 

minute longer ; I can't wait for daybreak. Wake up your 
father and ask him to hitch up Blaze. I 'm going to see 
Tom as quick as I can get there. I ought to have started 
before." 

" I 'm a-goin' too,'' said Mrs. Grayson. 

" No, mother ; you stay. It 's too much for you." 

"Me, Barbery!" The mother's lip quivered, and she 
spoke in a tremulous voice, like that of a pleading child. 
" Me stay 't home an' my Tommy — my boy — in jail I No, 
BarVry ; you won't make me stay 't home. I 'm goin' t' 
Moscow, ef it kills me. I must. I 'm his mother, Barl^ry. 
He 's the on'y boy 't 's left. All the rest is dead an' gone. 
An' him in jail ! " 

'*Pap! pap I you wake up!" Mely was calling to her 
father lying there asleep, and Barbara came and stood in 
the door, fain to hasten Bob McCord's slow resurrection 
from the deeps of unconsciousness and at the same time to 
escape from the sight of her mother's despair. 

As Bob got up and comprehended the urgent request 
that the horse be harnessed immediately, Barbara's atten- 
tion was drawn to a man coming swiftly down the road in 
the moonlight. The figure was familiar. Barbara felt sure 
she recognized the new-comer; and when, instead of 
stopping to fumble for the gate-bolt, he rested his hands 
on the fence alongside and sprang over, she knew that 
it was Hiram Mason, whom she had not seen since the 
evening, nearly two weeks before, when they had peeled 
apples together. It would be hard to say whether pleas- 



FRIENDS IN THE NIGHT 125 

ure or pain predominated in her mind when she recognized 
him. 

By the time Mason got over the fence Bob McGord had 
gone to the stable, and Mely had reentered the house. Bar- 
bara went forward and met Hiram on the steps to the 
porch. 

" Poor, dear Barbara ! " were his words as he took her 
hand. At other times her pride had been nettled by his 
pity, but her desolate soul had not fortitude enough left to 
refuse the solace of his tender words. 

"I came the very moment I heard," he said. "I was 
staying away down at Albaugh's, and Ike was the only one 
of them on the camp-ground. He was so excited, and so 
anxious to see and hear, that he did n't get home till 2 
o'clock. And only think I was sleeping quietly and you in 
such trouble ! " 

"You must n't come in," said Barbara. "We 're a 
disgraced family, and you must n't come in here any 
more." 

" What notions I " answered Hiram. " I 'm here to stay. 
Let me ask your mother." He took hold of her arms and 
put her aside very gently and pushed on into the house, 
where Mely was pinning on Mrs. Grayson^s wide cape pre- 
paratory to her ride to Moscow. 

" Mrs. Grayson — " said he. 

" W'y, ef 't ain't the master ! " she interrupted in a trem- 
bling voice. " Mr. Mason, Tommy never killed that man, 
an' he had n't ought to 'a' been took up." 



126 THE ORAYSONS 

" Mrs. Grayson, won't you let me stay with you a few 
days, now you 're in trouble, and help you through T ^ 

The old lady looked at him for a moment before she was 
able to reply. 

'^ It ain't fer a schoolmaster an' a preacher's son to come 
here, now folks '11 be a-sayin' 't we 're — 't we 're — murder- 
ers." This last word, uttered with tremulous hesitation, 
broke down her self-control, and Mrs. Grayson fell to weep- 
ing again. 

" I 'm going to stay by you awhile, and we '11 see what can 
be done," said Mason. " They 've taken your boy, and you 
'11 let me fill his place a little while, won't you, now ! " 

" (^k)d bless you, my son ! " was all the weeping woman 
could say; and Barbara, who had followed Hiram into the 
room and stood behind him while he talked to her mother, 
turned her face to the dark window and wept heartily for 
the first time in this sorrowful night. 

" You 'd jest orter 'a' heerd the master a-talkin' to Mrs. 
Grayson," said Mely McCord afterward. " He stood there 
lookin' at her with his head turned kind-uh comerin'-like, 
un his words was so soft-like uu pitiful ; — lawsey ! of he 
did n' make me feel jes like 's ef my heart wuz a-comin 
right up into my mouth." 

Bob McCord led old Blaze up in front of the gate, and 
all in the house went down to the road. 

" Mr. McCord," said Mason, " I want to drive that wagon." 

'* I don't blieve you kin do this fust piece uv road with 
nothin' but a weakly moonshine," said Bob. 



FRIENDS IN THE NIOHT 127 

" Oh, yes ! I Ve been over it a good many times." Only 
Barbara knew how often Hiram had traversed it. 

When the schoolmaster had helped Mrs. Grayson and 
Barbara into the wagon, and while Mely was assisting them 
to adjnst themselves, he went to the horse's head, where 
McCord was standing, and said in a low voice : 

" They told me there was a rush to lynch him last night ; 
and Ike Albaugh says that Jake Hogan, who worked for 
them this last harvest-time, told him at the camp-ground 
that the Broad Bun boys were going to make another of 
their visits to Moscow to-night if the coroner's inquest was 
against Tom. Now, Tom may be innocent ; and he ought 
to have a fair show anyhow." 

"I 'd better see to that!'' said Bob. "I 'low I 01 jest 
drop in amongst 'em over onto the run, kind-uh accidental- 
like, afore dinner-time to-day, an^ throw 'em off, one way er 
'nother, ez the case may be." 

Mrs. Grayson was seated in a chair placed in the spring- 
less wagon for her comfort, while Hiram and Barbara sat 
on a board laid across from one side to the other of the 
wagon. They departed out of sight slowly. Mason guiding 
the horse carefully over the rough ground in the obscurity 
of a moonlight not yet beginning to give way to the break 
of day. 



XII 



A TRIP TO BBOAD BUN 




S the wagon disappeared, Bob called to his 
daughter, who had been left in charge. 

" Mely ! Mely ! You jes stir np the kitchen 
fire there, honey, nn bile me a cap of coffee, 
agin I go home nn fetch my gun wi* the dogs, nn come 
back." (Bob knew there was no coffee at home.) " I 'm 
a-goin' over onto Broad Run arter bears." 

" Aw, now, pap, you 're all-ays off f er a hunt at the wrong 
time. Don' choo go away now, un the folks in sech a world 
uh trouble. Un besides, mammy hain't got anough to eat 
in the house to do tell you come back." All this Mely said 
in a minor key of protest, which she had learned from her 
mother, who was ever objecting in a good-natured, pathetic, 
impotent way to her husband's thriftless propensities. 

'* I know what I 'ra up to, Mely. They 's reasons, un the 
schoolmaster knows 'em. You keep your tongue still in yer 
head, honey. On'y be shore to remember, 'f anybody axes 
about me, 't I 'm arter bears. Jes say 't bears uz been seed 
over onto Broad Run, un 't pap could n't noways keep still. 



138 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUX 129 

he wuz SO sot on goin' over 'n' sayiu' howdy to 'em. That'll 
soun' like me, un folks '11 never mistrust." 

" But mammy hain't akchelly got anough f er the children 
to eat," responded Mely. 

" Well, I 'low to fetch some bear meat home, un you kin 
borry some meal from Mrs. Grayson's bar'el tell I git back. 
'P they knowed what kind uh varmints I wuz arter over 
there, they would n't begrudge me nuthin'. Sis. Come, now, 
hump yer stumps; fer I '11 be back in a leetle less'n no 
time." 

And Bob went off in the darkness. In about a dozen 
minutes he returned with his powder-horn slung about his 
shoulders over his hunting-shirt and carrying his rifle. He 
was closely followed by Pup, Joe, and Seizer, his three dogs, 
whose nervous agitation, as they nosed the ground in every 
direction, contrasted well with the massive stride of their 
master. Having swallowed such a breakfast as Mely could 
get him out of Mrs. Grayson's stores, and put a pone of cold 
corn-bread into the bosom of his hunting-shirt, McCord was 
off for the Broad Run region at the very first horizon-streak 
of daybreak. Though game was but a secondary object in 
this expedition, he could not but feel an exhilaration which 
was never wanting when he set out in the early morning 
with his gun on his shoulder and in the congenial compan- 
ionship of his dogs. Hercules or Samson could hardly have 
rejoiced in a greater assurance of physical superiority to all 
antagonists. The most marked trait in Bob's mental outfit 
was the hunter's cunning, a craft that took delight in tricks 



130 THE GBATSONS 

on man and beast. The fact that he was akin to some of 
the families on Broad Run enhanced the pleasure he felt in 
his present scheme to get the better of them. He would 
" Tarn the Broad Run boys a thing or two that 'd open their 
eyes.'' His great plump form shook with merriment at the 
thought. Plovers rose beating the air and whistling in the 
morning light as he passed, and the dogs flushed more than 
one flock of young prairie-chickens, which went whirring 
away just skimming the heads of the grass in low level flight, 
but Bob's ammunition was not to be spent on small game 
this morning. By 7 o'clock the increasing heat of the sun 
made the wide, half -parched plain quiver unsteadily to the 
vision. The sear August prairie had hardened itself against 
the heat — the grass and the ox-eyes held their heads up 
without sign of withering or misgiving : these stiff prairie 
plants never wilt — they die in their boots. But the foliage 
of the forest which Bob skirted by this time appeared to 
droop in very expectation of the long oppressive hours of 
breathless heat yet to come. In this still air even the uneasy 
rocking poplar-leaves were almost stationary on their edge- 
wise stems. 

Steady walking for more than three hours had brought 
Bob to the outskirts of the Broad Run region, and had sobered 
the dogs ; these now sought fondly every little bit of shade, 
and lolled their tongues continuously. The first person that 
Bob McCord encountered after entering the grateful region 
of shadow was one Britton — " ole man Britton,'' his neigh- 
bors called him. This old settler led a rather secluded life. 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 131 

Neither he nor his wife ever left home to attend meetings 
or to share in any social assembly. They had no relatives 
among the people of the country, and there was a suspicion 
of mystery about them that piqued curiosity. Some years 
before, a traveler, in passing through the country, gave out 
that he recognized Britton, by his name and features, as 
one whom he had known in Virginia, where he said Britton 
had been an overseer and had run away with his employer's 
wife. The neighbors had never accepted the traveler's story 
in this way; though they were ready to believe that the 
woman might have run away with Britton. When Bob 
came in sight of him the saturnine old man was standing 
looking over the brink of a cliflf into a narrow valley through 
which coursed the waters of Broad Bun, steadying himself 
meanwhile by a sapling. Bob, following his first impulse, 
deposited his gun, beckoned his close-following little dog 
back, and crept stealthily towards Britton, keeping a tree 
between him and the old man when he could. Arrived in 
reach he made a spring, and laying firm hold of his victim 
by grasping him under the arms, he held him for a moment 
over the edge of the precipice. Then he brought him back 
and set him safely down as one might a child, and said 
innocently : 

" Wy, Mr. Britton, I do declare, 'f I had n't 'a' cotcht 
you, you 'd 'a' fell off ! " 

The shriveled old man drew back to a safe distance from 
the brink, and tried to force his insipid face into a smile, 
but he was pale from the deadly fright. Big Bob rubbed 



132 THE GRATSONS 

his legs and gave way to a spasm of boisterous boyish 
laughter. 

** Seed any bear signs 'round about, Mr. Britton T " he 
said, when his laugh had died into a broad grin. 
"No." 

" What wuz you lookin' over the cliff fer T ^ 
" Zeke Tucker. He 's workin' fer me, an' he 's been gone 
all the momin' arter my day-bank boss. I 'm afeard 
sumpin 's happened.'' 

" 'P I find him I '11 set the dogs onto him an' hurry him 
up a leetle," said Bob, laughing again and going on, intent 
now on encountering Zeke, alone, for purposes of his own. 
Then, when he had gone a little way, he stopped and 
looked back at the retreating old man, and grinned as he 
noted the doleful way in which his over-large, trousers 
bagged behind. 

" Mr. Britton," he called, " which way 'd Zeke go ? " 
" Up the crick ; the hoss is up thar sumers." 
Having secured this information, Bob went on, descend- 
ing the cliff to the valley through which Broad Run rattled 
its shallow waters — a valley so broken and rugged as to 
render it almost unfit for cidtivation. This glen was 
settled, as such regions are wont to be, by a race of " poor 
whiteys," or rather by a mixture of people belonging to two 
stocks originally different. The one race was descended 
from the lowest of the nomads, vagrants, and other poverty- 
stricken outcasts that had been spirited away from Eng- 
land by means legal and illegal, to be sold for a long term 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 133 

into bondage in the American colonies; the other, from the 
roughest wing of the great Scotch-Irish immigration of the 
last century — the hereditary borderers who early fought 
their way into the valleys and passes of the Alleghanies. 
Equally thriftless in their habits, and equally without any 
traditions of their origin, members of these two tribes 
mingled easily. The people in whom the Scotch-Irish 
blood preponderates are more given to violence, but their 
humor, their courage, and their occasional bursts of energy 
indicate that they have a chance of emerging from barbar- 
ism ; while the poor whiteys of English descent are most of 
them beyond the reach of evolution, foreordained to extinc- 
tion by natural selection, whenever the pressure of over- 
population shall force them into the competition for exist- 
ence. 

With that instinctive unthriftiness which is the perpetual 
characteristic of the poor whitey in all his generations, the 
Broad Bun people had chosen the least inviting lands 
within a hundred miles for their settlement, as though 
afraid that by acquiring valuable homes they might lose 
their aptitude for migration ; or afraid, perhaps, that fer- 
tile prairies might tempt them to toil. The convenience 
of a brook by their doors, and a wood that was uncom- 
monly "handy,'' had probably determined their choice. 
Then, too, the circumjacent cliffs gave them a sense of 
being shut in from prairie winds, and put some limit 
to the wanderings of their half-starved "critters.'' For 
the rest, their demands upon the land were always very 
12 



134 THE GBATSONS 

modest — a few bushels of "taters,'' for roasting in the 
ashes; a small field of maize, for roasting-ears, hominy, 
and corn-dodgers ; and such pumpkins and beans as could 
be grown intermingled with the hills of com, were about 
all that one of these primitive families required, beyond 
what could be got with a gun or a fishing-line. The only 
real luxuries affected were onions and melons — '^ ing-uns un 
watermillions," in Broad Bun phrase. Their few pigs and 
cows ran at large, and lived as they could. Oxen they 
rarely owned, but whenever a man was in the least prosper- 
ous he was sure to possess a single inferior saddle-horse, 
though he sometimes had no saddle but a blanket girt with 
a surcingle. A horse was kept at the service of neighbors ; 
for, like other savages, the Broad Run people were hospita- 
ble and generous to members of their own tribe, and the 
only economy they understood was that of borrowing and 
lending, by which a number of families were able to make 
use of the same necessary articles. This happy device, for 
example, enabled one circulating flat-iron to serve an entire 
neighborhood. 

The Broad Run people entertained a contempt for the 
law that may have been derived from ancestors transported 
for petty felonies. It seemed to them something made in 
the interest of attorneys and men of property. A person 
mean enough to "take the law onto'' his neighbor was 
accounted too "triflin"' to be respectable; good whole- 
souled men settled their troubles with nature's weapons, — 
fists, teeth, and finger-nails, — and very rarely, when the 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 136 

offense was heinous and capital, with bullets or buckshot. 
Men who were habitually disgraceful in any way — as, for 
example, those who could not get drunk without beating 
their wives — were punished, without the delay of trial, by 
the infliction of penalties more ancient than statutes, such 
as ducking, riding on a rail, whipping, or sudden banish- 
ment. Hanging by lynch-law was reserved for the two 
great crimes of horse-stealing and murder. 

They put the killing of Gkorge Lockwood into the cate- 
gory of grudge-murder, since he was shot at night "with- 
out giving him a show for his life." But the shooting did 
not immediately concern Broad Run, and Broad Run folks 
would not have felt themselves responsible for seeing jus- 
tice done, if it had not been for concurring circumstances. 
Lynch law is an outbreak of the reformatory spirit among 
people of low or recent civilization. Like other movements 
for reform, it is often carried by its own momentum into 
unforeseen excesses. It had happened recently that two 
brothers, thieves of the worst class, who had infested the 
country and had long managed to escape from the law, had 
been sent to prison for four years. They were believed to 
be guilty of an offense much blacker than the robbery for 
which they were sentenced ; but the murder of a strange 
peddler had escaped notice until the body had been dis- 
covered two years after the crime, and the crime could not 
then be brought home by legal evidence. Their attorney, 
a lawyer notorious for chicanery, had, by appeal, got a new 
trial on account of some technical error in the proceedings 



130 THE GRATSOSS 

of the lower court. The county had ab-eady been heavily 
taxed to defray the expense of convicting them, and the 
I)eople were exasperated by the prospect of a new ex- 
pense with the possible escape of the criminals. Public 
expenses, it is true, sat lightly on Broad Bun ; the taxes 
levied on its barren patches and squalid cabins were 
not considerable, but Broad Bun made much of the 
taxes it did pay, and it caught the popular indignation, 
and was indignant in its own prompt and executive 
fashion. The very night before the new trial was to begin, 
the doors of the jail were forced, and the two prisoners 
were shot to death by a mob. On the jail door was left a 
notice, warning the attorney of the criminals to depart 
from the county within thirty hours, on pain of suffering a 
like fate. Though Broad Bun got most of the credit for 
this prompt vindication of justice, the leaving of this legi- 
ble notice upon the door was taken as evidence of the com- 
plicity of some whose education was better than that of the 
settlers at the Bun. This execution had taken place but 
three months before the shooting of George Lockwood, and 
the mob was like a were-wolf . Perhaps I ought rather to 
liken it to those professional reformers who, having abol- 
ished slavery, or waved their hats while others abolished it, 
proceed to inquire for the next case on the docket, and 
undertake forthwith to do away with capital punishment 
or the marriage relation. Having found its local self-com- 
placency much increased by success in discovering a 
method cheaper and more expeditious than those of the 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 137 

courts, Broad Run was readily inclined to apply its system 
of criminal jurisprudence to a new case. 

But this local reformatory tendency, like many large 
movements of the sort, was very capable of lending itself 
to the promotion of personal aims and the satisfaction of 
private grudges. One of Tom Grayson's rash boyish ex- 
ploits, soon after he took up his abode with his uncle in 
town, had been to avenge himself for an affront put upon 
him the year before by Jake Hogan of Broad Run. Jake, 
while working as a hired man for Butts, the next neighbor 
to the Graysons, had taken the side of his employer in the 
long-standing quarrel between the Buttses and the Gray- 
sons about pigs in the corn-field and geese in the meadow, 
"breachy'' horses and line fences. Jake had gone so far 
one day as to throw Tom, then a half-grown boy, into the 
"branch.'' A boy's memory of such events is good, and 
when Jake rode into Moscow, a year later, in company with 
his sweetheart to see the circus, Tom repaid the old grudge 
by taking the stirrups from Jake's saddle and dropping 
them into the public well ; so that the consequential Jake 
had the mortification of escorting a giggling Broad Run 
girl to her home with his lank legs and his big boots dan- 
gling, unsupported, against the flanks of his horse. Hogan 
would have beaten Tom, if he had not received an intima- 
tion that this would perhaps involve the necessity of his 
settling the matter a second time with big Bob McCord. 
But he laid up his grudge, and from that time he had taken 
pleasure in testifying to his settled conviction that Tom 
12* 



138 TRE GRATSOyS 

" would n' never come t^ no good eend." He always lent 
emphasis to this sinister prediction by jerking his head 
back, with the self-confident air of a man who knows what 
he knows. Prom the moment of the shooting of Lock- 
wood, when Jake found that Tom was on the direct road to 
the gallows, he began to twit all his cronies. 

** Hain't I all-ays said sot Go to thunder! D' yeh 
think Jake Hogan don't know a f eUer as the rope 's already 
got a slip-knot ontot" And he would jerk his chin back, 
and stiffen his neck, as he defiantly waited for a reply. 

Not content with exulting in successful prophecy, Jake 
got a notion from the first that it devolved on him now to 
see that this young scapegrace should not fail of merited 
punishment. His neighbors at the Run, having boasted 
much of the value of what they called " Broad Run law,'' 
were willing to add a leaf to their laurels as reformers of 
the county^ and he counted also on finding recruits 
among the loafers on the outskirts of the camp-meeting, 
if the coroner's jury should return a verdict adverse to 
Tom. 

Bob McCord was able to conjecture something of this 
state of affairs from the slender information the school- 
master had given him. During aU his morning's walk to 
Broad Run, Bob's thoughts had chiefly revolved about 
plans for circumventing Hogan. His first crude scheme 
was to join the reformers in their little excursion, and then 
mislead or betray them ; but his friendly relations with 
the Graysons were too well known to Jake for this to be 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 139 

possible. It was not until the old man Britton had men- 
tioned Zeke Tucker that there occurred to Bob's inventive 
mind a proper agent for his purpose. Wishing to have his 
coming known, he steered his course near to the rickety 
cabin of Eleazar Brown, or, as he was commonly called, 
" Ole Lazar Brown.'' 

"GP-momin', S'manthy," Bob called to Lazar Brown's 
daughter, at the same time giving his head a little forward 
jerk, — the very vanishing point of a bow, — but without 
stopping his march. S'manthy had buried two husbands, 
and had borne eight white-headed children, but she had 
never been called by any other name than S'manthy. Just 
now she was "batting" clothes on a block in front of the 
house, turning a wet garment over with her left hand from 
time to time, and giving it the most vindictive blows with 
a bat held in her right. 

" Y* ain't heem nothin' 'v no bears a-cap'rin' 'round h-yer 
lately, eh t " Bob asked, relaxing his gait a little. 

" They say as they 's a Var been seed furder upt the run, 
un I 'low you mout fine some thar ur tharabouts," replied 
the woman, intermitting her batting a moment and pushing 
back her faded pink sun-bonnet. "But wha' choo doin' 
away f om home, I 'd thes like to know, when they 's so 
much a-goin' on in your diggin'st They say you 've had a 
murder 'n' all that." 

" I don't talk, S'manthy. I 'm a-lookin' f er bears. They 
's times when you 'd orter hole onto yer tongue with both 
uh yore han's." 



140 THE GRATS0N8 

Bob quickened his stride again and was soon out of 
sight among the scrubby trees of the rugged valley. 

"I say, daddy!" called S'manthy, when Bob had had 
time to get out of hearing ; " looky h-yer, daddy ! " 

Old Lazar Brown, in answer to this call, came and stood 
in the door, taking his cob-pipe from his mouth with his 
shaky hand and regarding his daughter. 

" Big Bob McCord ^s thes gone along upt the run a-hunt- 
in' fer Vars," said S'manthy. " Un they say as the feller 
that killed t' other feller las' night 's the son uh the woman 
't 'e works fer. Bob 's the beatinest hunter ! Ef Gaberl 
wuz to toot his horn. Bob 'd ax him to hole on long anough 
fer him to git thes one more b'ar, I 'U bet." 

Lazar Brown had shaking-palsy in his arms, and, being 
good for nothing else, could devote his entire time to his 
congenial pursuits as gossip and wonder-monger of the 
neighborhood. Having listened attentively to S'manthy, he 
shook his head incredulously. 

" Yeh don't think ez he 's arter Vars, do yeh, S'manthy! 
Bob 's got some trick er 'nother 'n 'is head. Wy, thes you 
look, he mus' uh le't home afore daybreak. Now, Bob 'd 
natterly go to the earner's eenques' to-day, whar they 11 be 
a-haulin' that young feller up that shot t' other feller las' 
night. Big Bob ^s got some ornery trick 'n 'is head." Here 
Lazar Brown stopped to replace his pipe in his mouth. He 
was obliged to use botJi hands, but after two or three at- 
tempts he succeeded. "Looky h-yer, S'manthy, you thes 
keep one eye out fer Bob ; I 'low he '11 go down the run to- 



A TRIP TO BROAD BUN 141 

words ev'nin'. He '11 be orful dry by that time, f er he 's 
one of the driest fellers. Thes you tell him ^t I Ve got a 
fall jug, un ax him in, un we '11 kind-uh twis' it out uh 'im. 
I low 111 go 'n find Jake." 

Lazar returned to the house, knocked the ashes out of 
his pipe and refilled it. Then with some difftculty he suc- 
ceeded in taking a live coal from the ashes ; holding it in 
the leathery palm of his shaking left hand, he got it de- 
posited at last on the corn-cob bowl of his pipe. As soon 
as this operation of firing-up was completed, he set out in 
a trotty little walk, glad to have news that would make 
the neighbors hearken to him. 

Meantime Bob McCord, having passed out of sight of 
S'manthy in his progress up the creek^ had faced about and 
come back through the bushes to a point overlooking Lazar 
Brown's cabin, where, in a dense patch of pawpaws, he 
stood in concealment. This movement greatly perplexed 
the old dog Pup, who stood twitching his nose nervously, 
unable to discover what was the game that had attracted 
his master's eye. When at length Bob saw Lazar start off 
down the run, he smote his knee with his hand and gave 
vent to half-smothered laughter. 

" Tuck like the measles I " he soliloquized. " Un it '11 
spread too. See 'f it donH! Come, Pup — bears! bears! 
ole boy ! " • 

* Why it was that Bob said ''bears," and did not say "b'ars," as 
some of bis class did, I do not know. Broad as his dialect was, it was 
perceptibly less aberrant than that of Lazar Brown's family, for exam- 



142 THE QRATS0N8 

The dogs took the hint and ceajsed their nosing about the 
roots of trees for squirrels, and in beds of leaves and 
bunches of grass for hares. They began to make large cir- 
cles through the trees about Bob, who moved forward as 
the center of a sort of planetary system, the short-legged 
dog keeping near the center, while Pup ranged as far away 
as he could without losing sight of his master, — the re- 
mote Uranus of the hunt. Joe, having " tairrier " blood in 
him, ran with his nozzle down ; but long-legged Pup, with 
a touch of greyhound in his build, carried his head high 
and depended on his eyes. The fact that Tom Grayson's 
life was at stake afforded no reason, in BoVs view, for giv- 
ing over the pursuit of bears. Nor did he hunt in serious 
earnest merely because there was neither bread nor meat at 
home. A cat will catch mice for the mere fun of it, and 
with Bob the chase was ever the chief interest of life. But 
Bob did not forget his other errand ; while the dogs were 
seeking for bears, he was eagerly scanning the bushes in 
every direction for Zeke Tucker. Half a mile above Lazar 
Brown's he encountered Zeke, carrying a blind-bridle on 
his arm, and still looking in vain for Britton's stray horse. 

pie. It is impossible to trace the causes for local and family yariations 
of speech ; nor is a word always pronounced in the same way in a dia- 
lect, — it varies in sound sometimes, when more or less stress is put 
upon it. The varieties are here set down as they existed, except that 
print can never give those shades of pronunciation and inflection that 
constitute so large a part of the peculiarities of speech, local, i>er- 
Bonal, and temporary. 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 143 

" Hello, Zeke ! the very feller I wuz a-lookin' f er. Don't 
ax me no questions about what I 'm a-doin' over h-yer, 
an' I won't tell you no lies. Let 's set down a minute on 
that air hackberry log." 

The writer of a local guide-book to the city of Gtenoa 
recounts, among the evidences of piety exhibited by his 
fellow-citizens, the hospital built by them for those ^^la 
quale non h conceduto di bearsi nelsorriso di un padreP Zeke 
was one of those to whom, in the circumlocution of the 
Gtenoese writer, had not been granted the benediction of a 
father's smile. Such unfortunates were never wanting in 
a community like Broad Run, but no one had ever thought 
of building an asylum for them, though there were many 
ready to make them suffer the odium of sins not their own. 
Prom that imexpected streak of delicacy which is some- 
times found in a rough man of large mold. Bob McCord 
had always refrained from allusion to the irregularity of 
Zeke's paternity, and had frequently awed into silence those 
who found pleasure in jibing him. This had awakened in 
Zeke a grateful adhesion to Bob, and in the young man's 
isolation among his neighbors and his attachment to him- 
self Bob saw a chance to secure an aUy. 

" Zeke," said McCord, when once they were seated on the 
hackberry log, " you 'n' me 's all-ays been frien's, hain't we t " 

" Toobshore, Bob I they hain't no man a-livin' I 'd do a 
turn f er quicker." 

"Well, now, you tell me this: Is Jake Hogan a-goin' to 
town weth the boys to-night!" 



144 TBE GRAYSONS 

" I had n't no ways orter tell, but I low 't 'e is.'' 

" You a-goin' along t ^ 

" I dunno, 'P you don't want me to, I don't reckon ez I 
shaU." 

" Yes, but I 'd ruther you 'd go. I don't want that air 
fool boy hung 'thout a fair stan'-up trial, 'n' I may as well 
tell you 't I don't mean he shall be nuther, not 'f I have to 
lick Jake Hogan tell his ornery good-fer-nothin' hide won't 
hold shucks. But don't choo tell him a word 't I say." 

** Trust meP Zeke was pleased to find himself in impor- 
tant confidential relations with a man so much " looked up 
to " as Bob McCord. " Jake 's been the hardest on me 'v all 
the folks, un they 's been times when I 'lowed to pull up un 
cl'ar out fer the Injun country, to git shed uv 'im. I wish 
to thunder you toould lick him 'thin 'n inch 'viz life. He 's 
a dam-sight wuss 'n git out" 

"Looky h-yer, Zeke; I 'U tell you how you kin git even 
with Jake. You jest go 'long weth the boys to-night, 
wherever they go. I 'm goin' to fix it so 's they won't do 
nuthin' to-night. You 're livin' 't ole man Britton's now, 
ainch yeh ! " 

" Yes." 

" Well, you git off fer half a day f om Britton's, un go to 
the eenques' this artemoon, un fine out all you kin. Arter 
supper, you go over to the groc'ry ; un jest as soon 's you 
fine out whech way the wind sets, you 've got to let me 
know. 'T won't do fer me to be seed a-talkin' to you, ur 
fer me to loaf aroun' Britton's. But ef Jake makes up his 
mine to go to Moscow, you light a candle to-night un put it 



A TRIP TO BROAD RUN 145 

in the lof where you sleep, so 't H shine out uv a crack on 
the south side uv the chimbley, in the furder eend uv the 
house.'' 

^' But his mine 's already made up," said Zeke. 

"They ^s time to change afore night. Ef he 's goin' to 
Perry sburg " 

"Perrysburg! They ain't no talk uv Perrysburg," said 
Zeke. 

" They may be," answered Bob. " Un ef Perrysburg 's 
the place, you put the candle at the leetle winder on the 
north side uv the chimbley. Un when I shoot you put out 
the candle, un then 1 11 know it 's you, un you 11 know 't I 
understand You see, 't won't do f er me to stop any nearder 
'n the hill, un 111 wait there till I see your candle. Then 
you go weth Jake." Here Bob got up and strained his long- 
sighted eyes at some object in the bushes on the other side 
of the brook. " Is yon hoss yourn, on t' other side of the 
branch t " 

" I don't see no hoss," said Zeke. 

" Well, you watch out a minute un you '11 ketch sight uv 
'im. He 's gone in there to git shed of the flies." 

" That 's our clay-bank, I believe," said Zeke, getting up 
and carefully scanning the now half -visible horse. 

" Mine ! you hain^t seen nor heem tell of me, un you 
b'long to Jake's crowd weth all your might." 

With these words Bob set out again for his bear-hunt, 
while the bare-foot Zeke waded through the stream, which 
was knee-deep, and set himself to beguile Britton's clay- 
bank horse into standing still and forfeiting his liberty. 
13 




xm 

A BEIAE HUNT 

■OB McCORD liad that qaick, Bynipathetic ap- 
I preciation of brute impnlseB whicti is the 
I mark of a great hanter. Given a bear or a 
I deer in a certain place, at a certain hour of 
the day, and Bob would conjectore, without much chance 
of missing, in which direction he wonld go and what he 
would bo abont. In a two-hours' bcating-np the ravine he 
fonnd no traces of bears. Ho then faced almost about and 
bent his course to where the illimitable western prairie set 
into the woods in a kind of bay. Why he thought that on 
a hot day like this a bear might be taking a sunning in the 
open grass I cannot teU ; he probably suspected Bruin of 
an excursion to the corn-fields for "roas'in' ears." At any 
rate his conjecture was correct. Pup, beating forward in 
great leaps, with his bead above the grass, caught sight of 
a female bear making her way to a point of timber farther 
down the run known as Horseshoe Neck. When the bear 
BBw the dogs she quickened her leisurely pace into a lumber- 
ing gallop. Pup's long legs were stretched to their utmost 



A BEAR HUNT 147 

in eager leaps which presently brought him in front of her; 
Joe, when he came up, annoyed her at the side ; and stont 
little Seizer, watching the chance whenever she was making 
an angry lunge at Pup, would bravely nip her heels and so 
make her turn about. Before she could get her head fairly 
around the fiste would turn tail and run for his life. Bob 
tried to get within range before the bear shotdd disappear in 
the forest, but as soon as she saw herself near the timber she 
charged straight for it, refusing to strike at Pup, and 
wholly disregarding the barking of bob-tail Joe, or the 
proximity to her heels of Seizer. She quickly disappeared 
from sight in the underbrush, and the embarrassed do^s 
came near losing her. A few moments too late to get a 
shot, McGord came running to the woods at the point of her 
entrance. He examined the brush and listened a moment. 

" She 's gone up stream,'' he said, " bound to make her 
hole at Coon's Den, 'f I don't git there fust." 

He returned to the prairie and ran breathlessly along the 
edge of the woods for the better part of a mile ; then he 
dashed into the timber, and pushing through the brush 
until he reached a cliff, he clambered down and stood with 
his back to the head of a ravine tributary to the valley 
in which Broad Run flowed. He was breathless, and his 
flimsy lower garments had been almost torn off him by the 
violence of his exertion and the resistance of underbrush 
and rocks; in fact, raiment never seemed just in place on 
him ; the vigorous form burst through it now on this side, 
and now on that. Hearing the dogs still below him, he 



148 THE ORAYSONS 

knew that he had come in time to intercept the progress of 
the bear toward the heap of rocky debris at the head of 
the ravine. Once in these fastnesses, no skill of hunter or 
perseverance of dogs would have been sufficient to get her 
out. 

The bear was soon in sight, and Bob saw that the nearly 
exhausted dogs were taking greater risks than ever. Little 
Seizer was particularly venturesome, and was so much over- 
come with heat and fatigue, and so breathless with barking, 
that it was hard for him to get out of the way of the bear's 
retorts. " She 'U smash tliat leetle ijiot the very nex' time, 
shore," muttered Bob with alarm ; and though he knew the 
range to be a long one, he took aim and fired. Unluckily 
the infuriated Seizer gave the bear's heel a particidarly 
savage bite, and at the very instant of Bob's pulling the 
trigger she turned on the little dog, and thus caused the 
ball to lodge in her right shoulder just as she was striking 
out with her left paw. She barely reached the dog, and 
failed to crush him with the full weight of her arm, but she 
lacerated his side and sent him howling out of the fray. 
Now, wounded and enraged, she recognized in the hunter 
her chief enemy ; and, neglecting the dogs, she rushed up 
the ravine toward McCord. Bob poured a large charge of 
powder into his gun, and, taking a bullet from his pouch, 
he felt in his pocket for the patching. A moment he looked 
blankly at the oncoming bear and muttered " Gk)sh ! " be- 
tween his set teeth. There was not a patch in his pocket. 
He had put some pieces of patching there in the darkness 



A BEAR HUNT 149 

of the morning before leaving home, without remembering 
that his pocket was bottomless. He stood between a 
wounded bear and her cubs, and there was no time for de- 
liberation. He might evade the attack if he coxdd succeed 
in getting up the cliff where he had come down, but in that 
case she woxdd reach her hole and he would lose the battle. 
He promptly tore a piece from the ragged leg of his trou- 
sers, and, wrapping his ball in it, rammed it home. Then 
he took a cap from a hole in the stock of his gun and got 
it fixed just in time to shoot when the bear was within a 
dozen feet of him. Uncultivated man that he was, he had 
the same refined pleasure in the death-throes of his victim 
that gentlemen and ladies of the highest breeding find in 
seeing a frightened and exhausted fox torn to pieces by 
hounds with bloody lips. 

Bob's first care was to look after Seizer, who was badly 
wounded, but whose bones were whole. The afternoon had 
passed its middle when he shot the bear, and by the time he 
had cared for the dog and dressed his game the sun was 
low and McCord was troubled lest he should have delayed 
too long the execution of his stratagem for the confusion 
of Jake Hogan. 

Another man might have been considerably embarrassed 
to dispose of the bear. But Bob proceeded first to divest 
it of every part that was of little value. Then he hoisted 
the carcass to his shoulder and tossed the bear-skin on top. 
Taking up his rifle and balancing his burden carefully be- 
fore starting, he went swaying to and fro down the ravine, 
13» 



150 THE ORAYSONS 

choosing with care the securest places among the rocks to 
set his feet in. It was thus that Samson went off with 
the great gates of Gfusa. McGord was a primitive, Pelasgic 
sort of man, accustomed to overmatch the ferocities of 
Nature with a superior strength and cunning. Lacking 
the refinement and complexity of the typical modem, this 
antique human is more simple and statuesque; even the 
craft of such a man has little involution. There was joy 
in his bloody victory over the most formidable beast in his 
reach that was virile and unalloyed by ruth or scruple — a 
joy like that which vibrates in the verses of Homer. 

It was a good mUe to Lazar Brown's, where Bob hoped 
to find a horse to take his bear home. When at length he 
stopped to unshoulder his burden on a salient comer of old 
Lazar's rail fence, sunset had begun to bless the overheated 
earth. 

" Got a b'ar, did n' choo t ^ said Old Lazar, who was in 
wait for Bob. 

" To be shore. Uncle Lazar. Whadje expeck ! ^ 

" Come in, Bob, wonch yeh ! I got a fresh jug full uv 
the critter yisterday, un I low you 're purty consid'able dry 
agin this time. You purty much aU-ays air dry, Bob." 

" Well, Uncle Lazar, I am tol'able dry un no mistake. I 
hain't had nuthin' to drink to-day ^ceppin^ jes branch water, 
un clear water 's a mighty weak kind uv a drink f er a pore 
stomick like mine. 'N, I 'm hungry too. Dorf choo 'low 
S'manthy could rake up a cole dodger summers about!" 

"Oh, stay tell she gits you some supper." 



A BEAR HUNT 151 

"No, Unde Lazar; I could n' stop a minute noways. 
They hain't got nary thing t' eat 't our house. Len' me 
your mare to git this 'ere varmint home ! " 

" I could n', Bob. I 'm thes uz willin' to 'commodate ez 
anybody kin be, but I 've promised the mar' to one uv the 
boys to-night — to — to go a-sparkin' weth.'' 

"Oh, sparkin' kin wait. What 's a feller want to go 
sparkin' a Friday night fer! Tell him to wait tell Sunday, 
so 's the gal 'U have a clean dress on." 

" But I 've gi'n my word, Bob." 

"Your word hain*t no 'count, un you don't fool me, 
Unde Lazar," said Bob, with a broad grin. " Your mare 's 
a-goin' to town to-night, un ef she sh'd git a buUet-hole 
put into her who 'd pay the funeral ixpenses ! " 

This consideration went for a good deal with Lazar. 

" I say. Bob," he said, coming closer and speaking low, 
" w they goin' to be shootin' to-night! " 

" Uv course they is, un plenty uv it. Don' choo know 't 
the sheriff 's gi'n bonds, un 'f 'e lets a prisoner go he 's got 
to pay the damages! Un them town fellers is sot agin 
lynchin'." Seeing S'manthy in the cabin door straining her 
attention to the utmost. Bob spoke loud enough to reach 
her ears. " Lookey h-yer, Uncle Lazar," he went on ; " d' 
you reckon 't that feUer that 's a-goin' to git your mare 
shot to-night '11 gin you a whole quarter uv bear-meat fer 
the use arC the damages ef she 's shot f " 

This last hint had the desired effect. 

" 'T ain't no use a-talkin'. Daddy," S'manthy called out ; 



152 THE GRAYSON S 

" I hain't a-go'n' to let a^ ole f rien^ like Bob McCord pack 
that-ar great big Var all the way over to Timber Crick on 
his shoalders ez long 's my name 's S'manthy. Un I hain't 
a-go'n' to have the mar^ shot. So thar 's 'n eend auv it." 
S'manthy's common " uv'' or " uh " for " of became " auv ^ 
when she wished to be partictdarly emphatic and full- 
mouthed in a declaration. 

" Good f er you, S'manthy," said Bob. " You sh'U have 
the best leg this critter ^s got. Take yer ch'ice.'' 

A rusty ax was brought out, and Bob stopped a moment 
to examine its serrated edge. '' I say, Uncle Lazar, ez this 
a' ax ur a sawf From the aidge uv it I sh'd call it a saw, 
but the back uv it is sumpin like a' ax." Then with a 
laugh he proceeded to cut oflf a liberal quarter of the bear, 
while S'manthy's ten-year-old tow-headed boy was sent to 
" ketch up the mar^," which was nibbling grass on the far- 
ther side of a patch of broad-leaved cotton-weeds. When 
the quarter of bear-meat had been hung up at the north 
end of the cabin, Lazar got out his jug and Bob began to 
satisfy the longings of his colossal thirst, while S'manthy 
set out on the poplar table which stood in the middle of the 
floor some " Eaintucky corn-dodger,'' as she called it ; and 
despite Bob's protest against staying till she could cook 
some supper, she put a bit of fat salt pork in the skillet to 
fry. Meantime the old man plied Bob with more whisky, 
both before and after eating. When he thought it time for 
this to have taken effect, he began to try to satisfy his own 
curiosity. 



A BEAR EVNT 153 

" jy joo li-yer about the earner's eenqnest, Bob f " he said 
cautiously, feeling his way toward his point. 

" No, I did n't. You see, I hain't seed nobody but the 
bear, un she wuz the ign'rantest critter. Could n't tell 
me nuthin'." And Bob laughed at his own wit, as was his 
custom. " How 'd it go ! " Bob had wanted to ask this 
question, but he wished to let Uncle Lazar begin. 

" WeU, I hyem f om Raphe Jackson, thes now, that the 
jury said 's Lockwood come to 'is final eend ut the ban's uv 
Tom Grayson, ur sumpin like that; un they said 't wuz 
reg'lar bloody murder in the fust degree. My ! ef that 
wuz n't a mad crowd ! They made a rush fer Grayson, but 
the depitty shurriflf 'd got 'im away. Ef they 'd 'a' cotcht 
him they would n't 'a' made two bites uv him." 

" You don't say I " Bob was a little stunned. He had 
not thought of Tom's being at the inquest. He felt that 
perhaps in coming away he had made a mistake that had 
come near to being a fatal one. 

" They wuz thes a-howlin', Raphe said, un they had n't 
lef the place when he come away. They wuz made madder 
by the way the young scoundrel stood up un declared 't he 
did n' know nuthin' about the murder, arter 't wuz proved 
on him, plain 's the nose on a man's face, an' the dead man 
a-layin' right thar afore 'is own eyes." 

Bob was in a brown study, and nothing was said on either 
side for half a minute. It made Bob uncomfortable to re- 
flect that he had come near losing the game at the outset. 

" I low 't 11 go hard weth the young feller to-night." 



154 THE GBATSONS 

This roused McCord from the reverie produced from his 
surprise. 

" I reckoned the bojs'u'd be a-goin' to Moscow to-night," 
he said ; and added^ " Let 'em go I " And then he laughed 
as though he knew something. 

" Say, Bob,'' said Uncle Lazar, whose curiosity was piqued 
beyond endurance, "what 's in the wind! What wuz it 
fotcht you all the way over h-yer un the eenquest a-goin' 
on so closte to your house ! " 

" Had n' got no meat," said Bob, with a wink. 

" They 's sumpin more 'n that ar. You 've got sumpin 
ur nuther on Jake, I '11 bet." 

" I 'ke speck you know a whole lot, Uncle Lazar," said 
Bob. " I sh'd think you 'd jest right up un guess now." 

" WeU, I can't seem to." 

" Well, I 'm not a-goin' to let 't out. Uncle Lazar, 'thout 
this 'ere whisky uh youm 's a leetle too powerful f er me." 

Bob did not fear the whisky: it was rare that whisky 
could get the better of such a frame as his } and, moreover, 
he was inured to it. He only threw out this hint to per- 
suade his host to be more liberal in dispensing it. 

But it appeared that Lazar's liberality with his whisky 
was probably exhausted ; and Bob rose to go, affecting to 
be unsteady on his legs. 

" Seddown, Bob ; seddown, while I see about the mar'." 

" Well, I low I will. Uncle Lazar. That air whisky uh 
yourn has sort-uh settled into my feet a leetle." 

Lazar went out to see if the boy had brought the horse. 



A BEAR HUNT 155 

making a signal to his daughter to try her skill at coax- 
ing Bob to tell. Meantime Bob ogled S'manthy, who, like 
Delilah, was debating how she could win this Samson's 
secret. Presently he said, in a half -tipsy tone : 

" S'manthy, you 'n' me wuz all-ays good friends, wuz n't 
we!" 

*' Toobshore, Bob.'' 

'' I used to think you wuz same at a hoe-down ; you wuz 
the best-lookin^ un the liveliest dancer uv alL How you 
did slam-bang the floor I " 

S'manthy smiled in her faded way. " Bob, that 's all 
saf-sodder, un you know it. Say, Bob, ef you Ve sech a 
frien' why on yerth don' choo tell a-body what fotcht you 
over h-yer to-day ! " 

"Aw, well, I 'd tell, on'y I 'm af eared you 'd go un let 
out." 

" Not me. 'T a'n't like me to blab." 

"Well, I don' mine tellin' yaUy S'manthy, 'f yeh won't tell 
the ole man tell momin'." 

" Oh ! I 'd never tell him. He 'd go potterin' all over 
Broad Run Holler weth it, fust thing." 

" 'S the bes' joke," said Bob, rubbing his knees exultingly ; 
" but I 'm af eared you 'U tell," he added, rousing himself. 

" 'Pon my word 'n' honor, I won't. Nobody 11 ever git 't 
out uh me." And S'manthy emphasized this assurance by 
a boastful nodding of the head forward and to one side. 

"Well, 'f you think you kin keep the sekert overnight — 
Don' choo tell no livin' critter tell mornin'." 



156 THE GUAYSONS 

" I hain't no hand to tell sekerts, an' you 'd orter know 
that, Bob." 

" Well, you jes let Jake V his crowd go to Moscow to- 
night," said Bob, chuckling in a semi-tipsy, soliloquizing 
tone. " I come over to make shore they xvuz a-goin', un I 
wuz to let the sher'f know ef they had got wind uv any- 
thing. I saw Markham, the deppitty, about one o'clock this , 
mornin', un he tole me he 'd look arter the eenques' uu I 
mus' keep a lookout over h-yer. Jake 'U have a rousin' 
time, un no mistake." 

" Shootin' ! " queried S'manthy, with eagerness. 

"Naw! I wuz on'y a-lettin' on about shootin' to fool 
Uncle Lazar. Hain't got no needcessity to shoot. Better 
'n that I Gosh ! " 

"Groin' to take the young feller away?" 

" I 'low they did n't never take him back to Moscow arter 
the eenques'." 

" Tuh law I You don't say ! Whar 've they tuck 'm to ? " 

"I sha'n't tell," said Bob. "I sha'n't tell even yaw, 
S'manthy." 

"PerrysburgT" 

"You all-ays wuz some at guessin'. But I sha'n't say 
nary nuther word, on'y he 's whar Jake won't find him ef 
he goes to Moscow. They went summers, un that 's anough. 
Perrysburg jail 's rather stronger 'n ourn, 1 11 say tJiat 'T 
wuz all fixed, 'fore I lef home, to run him off afore the 
verdick wuz in, un not to keep to the big road nuther, so 's 
Jake would n' git wind uv 'em. Don't you whisper Per* 



A BEAR HUNT 167 

rysburg to a livin' soul. You jes' let Jake go down to Mos- 
cow ! I 'm comin' over 'n the momiu' to fetch your mare 
home un git my little Seizer that 's got to stay h-yer to- 
night, un then I '11 fine out how they come out." And Bob 
chuckled as he left the house, only turning back to say : 

" You keep closte, S'manthy, ur you 'U spile it aU. 'P 
you do teU, I won't never forgive yeh." 

Bob now went out and down to the brookside, where he 
cut up and stripped three or four leatherwood bushes, and 
tied the tough, fibrous bark into one strong rope- With 
this he girded the bear to the horse's back, meantime resist- 
ing all of old Lazar's inquiries about the reason for his 
coming. At length he walked off in the dusk, unsteadily 
leaning against the horse on which the bear-meat was tied, 
and was soon out of sight. 

" Bob won't tell me," said the old man plaintively, as he 
came into the house. 

*' He won't, won't he f demanded S'manthy, with exidta- 
tion in her voice. " You don^ know how. Takes me to 
git at a sekert." 

"Did he tell you, S'manthy!" Uncle Lazar looked a 
little crest-fallen. 

" In course he did. Think I could n' make him tell ! Wy, 
I kin thes twis' Big Bob 'roun' my little finger." 

" WeU, what on yerth did he come over yer fer, S'man- 
thy!" 

" I promised not to tell you." 

" To be shore you did. But you 're a-goin' to." 
14 



158 THE GUATSOSS 

" Yes ; but you '11 let it out, un then what 11 Bob say to 
me!'' 

" What '11 Jake say to you f er lettin' yer mar' go oflf, 
when one uv his boys had the promise ! Un what '11 the 
folks say when they And out you knowed, un let 'em be 
fooled by Big Bob! You 've got to tell, S'manthy, ur else 
have all the Holler down on yeh. Besides, you could n' 
keep that sekert tell bed-time, noways, un you know you 
could n'. 'T ain't in you to keep it, un you might thes ez 
well out weth it now ez arter awhile." 

" Aw, well, Daddy, Bob did n' say much, on'y ut Jake 
would n' fine the feller that done the shootin' when he got 
to Moscow." 

" Tuh law ! " exclaimed the old man, waiting with open 
eyes for more. 

" He wuz tuck oflf, afore the eenques' wuz over, to Perrys- 
biu'g, un Bob come over to see 't Jake did n' git no wind 
uv it. That 's all they is ^ it. Un you need n' go un tell it, 
h-yer arC yan, nuther." 

S'manthy knew well that this caution was of no avail. 
But by tacking the proviso to the information, she washed 
her hands of responsibility, and convinced herself that she 
had not betrayed a secret. It was an offering that she felt 
bound to make to her own complacency. 

Uncle Lazar, for his part, made no bones. He only tar- 
ried long enough to set his pipe to smoking. 

Bob McCord had stopped in the gi'owing darkness under 
the shade of a box elder, a little beyond the forks of the 



A BEAR HUNT 



159 



road. He presently had the satisfaction of seeing the head 
of the old man as he trotted away through the patch of 
stunted com toward a little grocery, which was located 
where the big road crossed Broad Bun Hollow, and which 
was the common center of resort and intelligence for the 
neighborhood. 



XIV 



IN PRISON 




IB AM MASON managed with difficulty to 
drive the first two miles of forest road — over 
roots and stumps^ through ruts and mud-holes, 
and with no light but that of a waning moon. 
When he reached Timber Creek bridge he got down and led 
the horse on its unsteady floor. Then came, like a dark 
spot in the pale moonlight, the log school-house, which re- 
minded him that he was running away from his day's 
work. He stopped at the new log-house of John Buchanan, 
a Scotch farmer who had been one of his predecessors, and 
called him up to beg him to take his place. Buchanan, 
whose knowledge was of the rudimentary kind, had ceased 
to teach because he had not been able to meet the increased 
demands of the patrons of the school ; it was a sort of con- 
solation to his thwarted ambition to resume the beech- 
scepter if only for a day. 

When Buchanan's house had been left behind, the road 
passed into an outskirt of small poplars, and then finally shook 
off this outer fringe of forest and lay straight away over the 



16U 



IN PRISON 161 

dead level of the great prairie. By the time the wagon reached 
this point the dawn was beginning to reveal the landscape, 
though as yet the world consisted only of masses of shadow 
interspersed with patches of a somber gray. But the 
smooth road was sufficiently discernible for Hiram to put 
the horse into a trot, which afforded no little relief to the 
impatient Barbara. Up to this time they had traveled in 
silence, except for the groans and sighs of Mrs. Grayson. 
But at length Barbara took the lead. 

" I can't believe that Tom did that shooting," she said to 
Mason. '^ He promised me after supper last night that he 
woidd put all hard feelings against George Lockwood out 
of his mind. Tom is n't the kind of a fellow to play the 
hypocrite. Oh, I do hope he is innocent ! " 

" So do I," said Mason. 

" To be sure he is,'' said Mrs. Grayson, with a touch of 
protest in her voice. 

Barbara had detected a note of effort in Hiram's reply, 
that indicated a prevailing doubt of Tom's innocence, and 
she did not speak again during the whole ride. When they 
entered the village. Mason drove first to the sheriff's house, 
and went in, leaving Barbara and her mother in the wagon. 
Sheriff Plunkett had not yet had his breakfast. He was a 
well-built man, of obliging manners, but with a look of 
superfluous discreetness in his face. Mason explained in 
few words that the mother and sister of Tom Grayson, who 
had not seen him since the shooting of Lockwood, were at 
the door in a wagon and wished to be admitted to the jail. 
14* 



162 THE GBATS0N8 

The sheriff regarded Mason awhile in silence ; it was his 
habit to examine the possible results of the simplest action 
before embarking in it. He presently went ap-stairs and 
came down bringing with him the jail keys. Mason drove 
the wagon to the jail, tied the horse to a tree, and suggested 
to Mrs. Grayson and Barbara that it would be better for 
him to go in first. He had a vague fear that there might 
be something in Tom's situation to shock the f eeUngs of his 
mother and sister. The sheriff had walked briskly along 
the wagon track in the middle of the street to avoid the 
dew-laden grass on either side of the road. When he came 
to the door of the jail he said in an undertone as he shoved 
the great iron key into the door : 

" Tom 's in the dungeon.'' 

" Why did you put him in the dungeon t " asked Mason. 

" We always put prisoners accused of murder in there." 

'' You might put an innocent man in that place," said 
Mason. 

" Well, there ain't much doubt about Tom's being guilty; 
and anyways the jaQ 's so weak that we have to put any- 
body accused of murder in the dungeon, where there ain't 
any outside windows." 

By the time he had finished this speech, Plunkett had 
admitted Mason and himself to the jail and locked the out- 
side door behind them. The prison was divided into two 
apartments by a hall- way through the middle. The room 
to the left, as one entered, was called the dungeon ; it was 
without any light except the little that came through at 



IN PRISON 163 

second-hand from the dusky hall by means of a small grat- 
ing in the door; the hall itself was lighted by a simple 
grated window at the end farthest from the outside door. 

When the sheriff had with dif&culty opened the door of 
the dungeon, he could not see anything inside. 

" Tom, come out," he called. 

Mason was barely acquainted with Tom, but he was 
shocked to see the fine-looking fellow in handcuffs as he 
came to the door, blinking his eyes at the light, and show- 
ing a face which wounded pride and anxiety had already 
begun to make haggard. 

"Mr. Mason, I did n't expect to see you," said Tom. 
" Did yon hear anything from mother and Barbara t " 

" They 're outside," said Mason. " I thought I 'd just 
take your place at home for a few days." 

The sheriff had gone along the hall to open the door 
leading into the room on the side opposite the dungeon. 
Tom regarded Mason a moment in silence, and presently 
said with emotion : 

" How can I make anybody believe the truth t They '11 
say that a man who 'd kill another would Ue about it. I 
believe I should n't care so much about the danger of being 
hung, if I could only make a few people know that I did 
n't kill George Lockwood. I can't make you believe it, 
but I 'm not guilty." As he said this, Tom dropped his 
eyes from Mason's face, and an expression of discourage- 
ment overspread his own. 

'' Tou certainly don't seem like a guilty man," said Hiram. 



164 THE GRAY80N8 

" The worst of it is," said Tom, as they followed the 
sheriff iuto the eastern room of the jail, '' I cau't think, to 
save my life, who 't was that could have done the shooting. 
I don't know of any enemy that Lockwood had, unless you 
might have called me one. I hated him and talked like a 
fool about shooting, but I never seriously thought of such 
a thing." 

The eastern room of the wretched little jail was about 
fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. In it were confined 
from time to time ordinary prisoners and occasionally luna- 
tics, without separation on account of character or sex. 
Fortunately Tom had the jail now to himself. 

The sheriff, who in those days was also the jailer, locked 
Mason and Tom in the eastern room while he opened the 
outside door and admitted Mrs. Grayson and Barbara to 
the hall. Then he locked the front door behind them and 
proceeded to unlock the door of the eastern room. Barbara 
ran in eagerly and threw her arms about Tom. 

"Tell me truly, Tom," she whispered in his ear, "did 
you do itt Tell me the solemn truth, between you and me." 

" Before Gk)d Almighty, Barb," he answered, " I did n't 
shoot George Lockwood, and I did n't even see him on the 
camp-ground. I was n't in that part of the woods, and I 
had n't any pistol." 

"Tom, I believe you," said Barbara, sobbing on his 
shoulder. Wondering that her brother did not return her 
embrace, she looked down and saw his handcuffs, and felt, 
as she had not before, the horror of his situation. 




^ 



IN PRI80K 166 

Mrs. Grayson now gently poshed Barbara aside and ap- 
proached Tom. 

" I did n't do it, mother,'' said Tom ; " I did n't do it." 

" Of course you did n't, Tommy ; I never thought you 
did — I just knew you could nH do it." And she put her 
trembling arms about him. 

Hiram had gone into the corridor from motives of delicacy. 

" Could n't you move him into the east room ! " he said 
to the sheriff. '' It 's too bad to have to lie in that dun- 
geon, without air, and in August too. And is it necessary 
to keep his handcuffs on t " 

" Well, you see, it 's the regular thing to put a man into 
the dungeon that 's up for murder, and to put handcuffs 
on. The jail 's rather weak, you know ; and if he should 
escape — I 'd be blamed." 

Mason went into the dark room and examined the dirty, 
uncomfortable cot, and felt of the damp walls. Then he re- 
turned to the east room just as Tom was explaining his 
flight from the camp-ground. 

" I saw a rush," he said, " and I went with the rest. A 
man was telling in the dark that George Lockwood had 
been shot, and that they were looking for a fellow named 
Grayson and were going to hang him to the first tree. I 
ran across the fields to our house, and by the time I got 
there I saw that I 'd made a mistake. I ought to have come 
straight to Moscow. I went into the house and came out 
to go to Moscow and give myself up, but I met the sheriff 
at the gate." 



166 THE GRAY80NS 

" The first thing is the inquest," said Mason. " Have you 
thought about a lawyer ! " 

" There 's no use of a lawyer for that,'' said Tom. " My 
fool talk about killing Loekwood is circumstantial evidence 
against me, and I 'U certainly be held for trial — unless the 
real murderer should turn up. And I don't know who that 
can be. I 've puzzled over it all night." 

^' Tou studied with Mr. Blackman, I believe," said Mason. 
" Could n't you get him to defend you ! " 

" I don't know that I want him. He 's already prejudiced 
against me. He would n't believe that I was innocent, aud 
BO he could n't do any good." 

" But you Ve got to have somebody," said Barbara. 

" I Ve been over the whole list," said Tom, " and I 'd 
rather have Abr'am than anybody else." 

" Abra'm '11 do it," said Mrs. Grayson ; " I kin git him to 
do it. He 's a little beholden to me f er what I done f er him 
when he was little. But he 's purty new to the law-busi- 
ness, Tommy." 

" Abra'm Lincoln 's rather new, but he 's got a long head 
for managing a case, and he 's honest and friendly to us. 
The circuit court begins over at Perrysburg to-morrow, and 
he '11 like as not stop at the tavern here for dinner to-day. 
Tou might see him, mother." 

" Tom ! Tom ! " The voice was a child's, and it came 
from the outside of the window-grating. A child's fingers 
were clutched upon the stones beyond the grating ; and be- 
fore Tom could answer, the brown head of Janet Grayson 



IN PRISON 167 

was lifted to the level of the high, square little window, and 
her blue eyes were peering into the obscurity of the prison. 

" Tom, are you there ! Did they give you any break- 
fast! " she faltered, startled and ready to cry at finding 
herself calling into a place so obscure and apparently so 
void. 

" O Janet ! is that you ! " said Tom, putting his face to 
the grating. '* You blessed little soul, you ! But you must 
n't come to this dreadful place." And Tom tried to wipe 
his eyes with his sleeve. 

" Yes, but I am sorry for you. Cousin Tom,'' she said, 
dropping to the ground again and turning her head on one 
side deprecatingly ; " and I was afraid they would n't give 
you enough to eat. Here 's three biscuits/ She pulled 
them out of her pocket with dif&culty and pushed them 
through the grating. 

" Thank you, thank you," said Tom. " You are a dear 
loving little darling. But see here, Janet, you 'd better not 
come here any more; and don't call me cousin. It 's too 
bad you should have to be ashamed of your cousin." 

" But I teill call you cousin, an' I don' care what they say. 
Are you in there, too, Barbara t You did n't kill anybody, 
did yout" 

" No ; neither did Tom," said Barbara, leaning down to 
the window. 

"Janet," said Tom, "d' you tell Uncle Tom and Aunt 
Charlotte that I did n't shoot anybody. They won't believe 
you, but it 's a fact" 



168 THE GBAYSOXS 

Janet had heard the news at the breakfast-table. Sheriff 
Plnnkett, wishing to conciliate so influential a person as 
Thomas Grayson the elder, had sent him word very early 
of the unfortunate predicament in which Tom found him- 
self, and had offered to comply with any wishes Mr. Grayson 
might express concerning his nephew, so far as the rigor of 
the law allowed. To steady-going people like the Graysons 
the arrest of Tom on such a charge was a severe blow ; and 
his execution would compromise for all time their hitherto 
unsullied respectability in their little world. They drank 
their breakfast coffee and ate their warm biscuit and butter 
and fried ham and eggs with rueful faces. The comments 
they made on Tom's career were embittered by their own 
share of the penalty. Janet had listened till she had made 
out that Tom was in jail for killing someb()dy. Then, after 
hearing some rather severe remarks from her parents about 
Tom, she burst into tears, rose up and stamped her feet in 
passion, and stormed in her impotent, infantile way at her 
father and mother and the people who had locked up Tom 
in jail. When the first gust of her indignation had found 
vent, she fled into the garden to cool off, as was her wont. 
After awhile she came back and foraged in the kitchen, where 
she pounced upon three biscuits which had been left on a 
plate by the fire to keep them warm. With these she had 
made off through the back gate of the garden, thence down 
the alley and across the public square to the jail. 

Meantime a lively discussion was carried on in the house. 

" We Ve got to do something for Tom, I suppose," said 




*^ ^<" 



IN PRISON 169 

Mrs. Grayson, after the question of his blameworthiness was 
exhausted. " He 's your nephew, and we can't get around 
that. Goodness knows he 's given us trouble enough, and 
expense enough, already." It was a favorite Dlusion with 
the Graysons that they had spent money on Tom, though 
he had earned all he had received. 

" Yes,'' said Grayson reluctantly ; " it 11 be expected of 
us, Charlotte, to stand by him. He 's got no father, you 
know. And I suppose George Lockwood was aggravating 
enough." 

'* The Lord knows I 'm sorry for Tom ; he was always 
good to Janet." This reminded Mrs. Grayson of her daugh- 
ter, and she went to the open door of the dining-room and 
called, " Janet ! O Janet ! It 's curious how she stands by 
Tom. She's oflf in the sulks, and won't answer a word I 
say. I suppose you 11 have to go his bail," she said with 
apprehension. 

" No, it 's not bailable. They don't bail prisoners charged 
with capital offenses." 

" That 's a good thing, anyhow. I hate to have you go 
security." 

" I suppose Martha '11 be able to pay the lawyers," said 
Thomas Grayson. " She won't expect us to do any more for 
Tom. It 's bad enough to have to stand the disgrace of it." 

" Janet ! Janet ! O Janet ! " called Mrs. Grayson anxious- 
ly. " I declare, I 'm uneasy about that child ; it 's nearly 
half an hour since she went out. I wish you 'd go and have 
a look for her." 
15 



170 THE GBATSOXS 

But at that moment Janet rushed in breathless through 
the kitchen. 

" O Pa I I 've been over to the jail to see Tom." 

"You Ve been to the jail!" said Grayson, recoiling in 
his heart from such an experience for Janet. 

"Yes, an' they 've put Barbara and Aunt Martha in 
there too, along with Tom." She was bursting with indig- 
nation. 

"Thomas," said Mrs. Grayson, as she gathered up the 
hitherto neglected breakfast plates, " Martha and Barbara 
have come from home this morning." 

" I suppose so," said Grayson, looking out of the window. 

" Now it 's not going to do for us to let them go without 
coming here to breakfast," said the wife. " People will say 
we're hardhearted; and when they once get to talking 
there 's no knowing what they twnH say. They might blame 
us about Tom, though the Lord knows we did our best for 
him." 

" WiU you go and ask Martha and Barbara to come over?" 
said Grayson, with a sneaking desire to escape the disagree- 
able duty. 

" I can't bear to," said his wife. " I hate to go to the jail 
and see Tom there. Besides, if they 're coming I must make 
some coffee." 

Grayson stood still and looked out of the window. 

" WiU they let them come if you ask 'em f " inquired Janet. 

" Let who come t " said her father abstractedly. 

" Aunt Martha and Barbara and Tom." 



IN PBISON 171 

"Of course they'll not keep your Aunt Martha nor 
Barbara. They have n't killed anybody." 

*' Neither has Tom. He told me to tell you he had n't." 

" I suppose they all talk that way. 'T ain't like Tom to 
lie about anything though. He generally faces it out, rain, 
hail, or shine. I wish to goodness he could prove that he 
did n't kill George. Where are you going, Janet t ^ 

^^ To fetch Aunt Martha and Barbara. I wish they 'd let 
Tom come too." 

Grayson spent as much time as possible in getting his hat 
and looking it over before putting it on. Then, when he 
could think of no other pretext for delay, he started as 
slowly as possible, in order to give Janet time to fetch his 
relatives away from the jail before he should encounter 
them. Janet found her aunt coming out of the prison in 
order to allow the sheriff to go to breakfast. 

" Aunt Martha," cried Janet, " Ma wants you an' Barbara 
to come to breakfast. She sent me to tell you." 

" I don't like to go there," said Barbara to her mother in 
an imdertone. 

But Mason, who was behind, perceiving Barbara's hesita- 
tion, came up and whispered : " You 'd better go, Barbara. 
Tom will need all the help he can get from your uncle's 
position. And I '11 take the horse and put him into your 
uncle's stable." 



XV 

ABRAHAM UNCOLN 




KQE village of Moscow was founded by adveo- 

T"^ turous pioneers while yet Napoleon's Russian 
^^^JS expedition was fresh in all men's minds, and 
1 took from that memory its Russian name, 
which, like most other transplanted names of the sort, was 
nniversally mispronounced. The village had been planted 
in what is called an " island," that is, a grove smrouoded 
by prairie on every side. The early settlers in Illinois were 
afraid to seat themselves far from wood. As it stands to-day, 
the pretty town is arranged about a large public square, 
neatly fenced, and with long hitching-rails on all four sides 
of it. The inside of the square is trimly kept, and is am- 
ply shaded by old forest-trees — the last survivors of the 
grove that formed the " island." Moscow contains a court- 
house, which is pretentious and costly, if not quite ele- 
gant, besides other public buildings. On the streets facing 
this park-like square nearly all the trade of the thriving 
country-town is carried on. But in the time of Tom Gray- 
son's imprisonment the public square was yet a rough piece 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 173 

of woods, with roots and stumps still obtruding where un- 
derbrush and trees had been cut out. There was no fence, 
and there were no hitching-rails. The court-house of that 
day was a newish frame building, which had the public- 
grounds all to itself except for the jail, on one comer of the 
square. Facing the square, on the side farthest from the 
jail, stood the village tavern. One half of it was of hewn 
logs, which marked it as dating back to the broad-ax period 
of the town's growth ; the other half had been added after 
the saw-mill age began, and was yet innocent of paint, as 
were the court-house and several other of the principal 
buildings in the town. In front of the tavern was a native 
beech-tree, left behind in the general destruction. Under it 
were some rude benches which afforded a cool and favorite 
resort to the leisurely villagers. One of the boughs of this 
tree served its day and generation doubly, for besides con- 
tributing to the shadiness of the street-comer, it supported 
a pendant square sign, which creaked most dolefully when- 
ever there was wind enough to set it swinging in its rusty 
iron sockets. The name of the hotel was one common to 
villages of small attainments and great hopes; the sign 
bore for legend in red letters : " City Hotel, R. Biggs.'' 

To the City Hotel there came, on this first day after Tom's 
arrest, one of those solitary horsemen who gave life to nearly 
every landscape and mystery to nearly every novel of that 
generation. This horseman, after the fashion of the age, 
carried his luggage in a pair of saddle-bags, which kept time 

to his horse's trot by rapping against the flaps of his saddle. 
15» 



174 THE GRAT80XS 

" Howdy, Cap'n Biggs,'' said the traveler to the landlord, 
who was leaning solidly against the door-jamb and showing 
no sign of animation, except by slowly and intermittently 
working his jaws in the manner of a ruminating cow. 

"Howdy, Abe," was the answer. "Where yeh boun' 
fer?" 

" Perrysburg,'' said the new arrival, alighting and stretch- 
ing the kinks out of his long, lank limbs, the horse mean- 
while putting his head half-way to the ground and moving 
farther into the cool shade. Then the horseman proceeded 
to disengage his saddle-bags from the stirrup-straps, now 
on one side of the horse and then on the other. 

" Have yer boss fed some corn ?" In asking this question 
Captain Biggs with some difficulty succeeded in detaching 
himself from the door-post, bringing his weight perpendicu- 
larly upon his legs; this accomplished he sluggishly de- 
scended the three door-steps to the ground and took hold 
of the bridle. 

"What's this I hear about Tom Grayson, Cap'n?'' said 
the new-comer, as he tried to pull and wriggle his trousers- 
legs down to their normal place. 

"Oh, he's gone'n' shot Lockwood, like the blasted fool 
he is. He wuz blowin' about it afore he lef town las' month, 
but nobody reckoned it wuz anything but blow. Some 
trouble about k-yards an' a purty gal — John Albaugh's gal. 
I s'pose Tom 's got to swing f er it, 'nless you kin kinder be- 
wilder the jury like, an' git him oflf. Ole Mis' Grayson 's 
in the settin'-room now, a-waitin' to see you about it." 



ABBA HAM LINCOLN 175 

Captain Biggs lifted his face, on which was a week's growth 
of stnbby beard, to see how his guest would take this in- 
formation. The tall, awkward young lawyer only drew his 
brow to a frown and said nothing; but turned and went into 
the tavern with his saddle-bags on his arm, and walking 
stiffly from being so long cramped in riding. Passing 
through the cool bar-room with its moist odors of mixed 
drinks, he crossed the hall into the rag-carpeted sitting-room 
beyond. 

" Oh Abra'm, I 'm that glad to see you ! " But here the 
old lady's feelings overcame her and she could not go on. 

" Howdy, Mrs. Grayson. It's too bad about Tom. How 
did he come to do it ? " 

"Lawsy, honey, he didnH do it.'^ 

"You think he did n't P 

^* I know he did n't. He says so himself . I Ve been a-waitin' 
here all the momin' to see you, an' git you to defend him." 

The lawyer sat down on the wooden settee by Mrs. Gray- 
son, and after a little time of silence said : 

" You 'd better get some older man, like Blackman." 

" Tom won't have Blackman ; he won't have nobody but 
Abe Lincoln, he says." 

" But — they say the evidence is all against him ; and if 
that 's the case, an inexperienced man like me could n't do 
any good." 

Mrs. Grayson looked at him piteously as she detected his 
reluctance. 

" Abra'm, he 's all the boy I Ve got left. Ef you 11 defend 



176 THE GBAY80N8 

him I '11 give you my farm an' make out the deed before you 
begin. An' that 's all I 've got.'' 

" Farm be hanged ! ^ said Lineoln. " Do you think I don't 
remember your goodness to me when I was a little wretch 
with my toes sticking out of my ragged shoes I I would n't 
take a copper from you. But you 're Tom's mother, and of 
course you think he did n't do it. Now what if the evidence 
proves that he did? " 

Barbara had been sitting in one comer of the room, and 
Lincoln had not observed her in the obscurity produced by 
the shade of the green slat curtains. She got up and came 
forward. " Abra'm, do you remember me ? " 

" Is this little Barby ? " he said, scanning her face. '* You're 
a young woman now, I declare." 

There was a simple tenderness in his voice that showed 
how deeply he felt the trouble that had befallen the 
Graysons. 

" Well, I want to say, Abra'm," Barbara went on, " that 
after talking to Tom we believe that he docs n't know any- 
thing about the shooting. Now you 'd better go and see 
him for yourself." 

" Well, I '11 tell you what, Aunt Marthy," said he, relapsing 
into the familiar form of address he had been accustomed 
to use toward Mrs. Grayson in his boyhood ; " I '11 go over 
and see Tom, and if he is innocent, as you and Barby think, 
we '11 manage to save him or know the reason why. But I 
must see him alone, and he must n't know about my talk 
with you." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 177 

Lincoln got up, and laying his saddle-bags down in one 
comer of the room went out immediately. First he went to 
inquire of Sheriff Plunkett what was the nature of the evi- 
dence likely to be brought against Tom. Then he got the 
sheriff to let him into the jail and leave him alone with his 
client Tom had been allowed to remain in the lighter apart- 
ment since there was no fear of his escape on this day, when 
all the town was agog about the murder, and people were 
continually coming to peer into the jail to get a glimpse of 
the monster who in the darkness had shot down one that had 
helped him out of a gambling scrape. 

Lincoln sat down on the only stool there was in the room, 
while Tom sat on a bench. 

" Now, Tom," said the lawyer, fixing his penetrating gaze 
on the young man's face, "you want to remember that I 'm 
your friend and your counsel. However proper it may be 
to keep your own secret in such a situation as you are, you 
must t^U me the whole truth, or else I cannot do you any 
good. How did you come to shoot Lockwood t" 

" I did n't shoot Lockwood,'' said Tom brusquely ; " and 
if you don't believe that it 's no use to go on." 

" Well, say I believe it then, and let 's proceed. Tell me 
all that happened between you and that young man." 

Tom began where this story begins and told all about 
turning the Bible at Albaugh's; about the gambling In 
Wooden & Snyder's store and how he was led into it; about 
his visit to Hubbard Township to get money to pay Lock- 
wood, and Rachel's revelation of Lockwood's treachery in 



178 THE GBAYSONS 

telliog Ike. Then he told of his anger and his threaten- 
ing, his uncle's break with him, and his talk with Barbara 
the evening before the murder ; and finally he gave a circum- 
stantial account of all that happened to him on the camp- 
ground, and of his flight and arrest. 

^' But," said Lincoln, who had looked closely and some- 
times incredulously at Tom's face while he spoke, *^ why did 
you take a pistol with you to the camp-meeting? " 

'^ I did not, I had n't had a pistol in my hands for a week 
before the shooting." 

'^ But Plunkett says there 's a man ready to swear that he 
saw you do the shooting. They 've got a pistol out of one 
of your drawers, and this witness will swear that you used 
just such an old-fashioned weapon as that." 

'^ Qood Lord, Abe I who would tell such an infernal lie on 
a fellow in my fix f That makes my situation bad." And 
Tom got up and walked the stone-paved fioor in excitement. 
" But the bullet wiU show that I did n't do it. Get hold of 
the bullet^ and if it fits the bore of that old-fashioned pistol 
I won't ask you to defend me." 

" But there was n't any bullet" Lincoln was now watch- 
ing Tom's countenance with the closest scrutiny. 

"No bullet ! How in creation did they kill him, then?" 

" Can't you think ? " He was still studying Tom's face. 

"I don't know any way of killing a fellow with a 
pistol that 's got no bullet unless you beat his brains out 
with the butt of it, and I thought they said George was 
shot." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 179 

" So he was. Bnt> Tom, I 've made up my mind that you 
Ye innocent. It 's going to be dreadful hard to prove if 

" But how was he killed t " demanded Tom. 

" With buck-shot." 

Tom stood and mused a minute. 

" Now tell me who says I did the shooting.'' 

"I never heard of him before. Sovine, I believe his 
name is." 

" Dave Sovine t Wy, he 's the son of old Bill Sovine ; he 's 
the boy that ran oflf four years ago, don't you remember t 
He 's the blackleg that won all my money. What does he 
want to get me hanged forf I paid him all I owed him." 

Lincoln hardly appeared to hear what Tom was saying ; 
he sat now with his eyes fixed on the grating, lost in 
thought. 

" Tom," he said at length, " who was that strapping big 
knock-down fellow that used to be about your place — hun- 
ter, fisherman, fist-fighter, and all thatf " 

" Do you mean Bob McCord ? " 

" That must be the man. Big Bob, they called him. He's 
friendly to you, is n't he t " 

" Oh, yes I " 

" Well, you have Big Bob come to see me next Tuesday at 
the tavern, as I go back. 1 11 be there to dinner. And if you 
are called to the inquest, you have only to tell the truth. We 
won't make any fight before the coroner ; you 11 be bound 
over anyhow, and it 's not best to show our hand too soon." 

With that he took his leave. When he got out of the 



180 THE GRATSONS 

prison he found Mrs. Grayson and Barbara waiting to see 
him. 

" Well, Aunt Marthy,'' he said, " it don't seem to me that 
your boy killed that fellow. It 's going to be hard to clear 
him, but he did n't do it. I '11 do my best. You must get 
all Tom's relations to come to the trial. And have Big Bob 
McCord come to see me next Tuesday." 

The influence of Tom's uncle, judiciously directed by 
Hiram Mason, secured for the accused permission to remain 
in the light room of the prison in the day-time with manacles 
on, and to sleep in the dungeon at night without manacles. 
And the influence of Janet secured from Tom's aunt the loan 
of the clean though ancient and well-worn bedding and bed- 
linen that had been afforded him during his stay in his uncle's 
house. This was set up in the dark room of the jail in place 
of the bed that had been a resting-place for villains almost 
ever since the town was founded. 

Understanding that Tom was to be taken to the coroner^s 
inquest that afternoon, Hiram tried to persuade the sheriff 
to take him to Perrysburg jail at night for safety ; for he 
had no knowledge of Bob McCord's plan for sending the 
mob there. But Plunkett refused this. He knew that such 
a change might offend Broad Run in case it should take a 
notion to enforce law in its own way, and Broad Run was 
an important factor in an election for county officers. 
Plunkett felt himself to be a representative sheriff. The 
voters of Broad Run and others of their kind had given him 
his majority, and he was in his place to do their will. Ele- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



181 



vation to office had not spoiled him ; he recognized in him- 
self a humble servant of the people, whose duty it was to 
enforce the law whenever it did not conflict with the wishes 
of any considerable number of his " constituents.'* To his 
mind it did not appear to be of much consequence that a 
man who deserved hanging should receive his merited pun- 
ishment at the hands of a mob, instead of suffering death 
according to the forms of law, after a few weeks or months 
of delay. But he was too cautious to reveal to Mason the 
true state of his mind ; he only urged that the removal of 
Tom to Perrysburg would be an act of timidity that might 
promote the formation of a mob while it would not put Tom 
out of their reach ; and this Mason could not deny. 



16 




XVI 

THE CORONEB'S INQUEST 

XHE ranrder of George Lnckwood fumiBhed a 

T"^ powerfal counter-excitement, ■which quite 
_ _is|i 'jroke the continuity o( religious feeling, and 
i lucked little of completely breaking up the 
camp-meeting. Hundredsofmenandwomen thronged about 
the place of the shooting and discussed all the probable and 
possible details of the affair, of which several versions were 
already current. The coroner ordered the body removed to 
a large bam in the neighborhood ; whereupon the people 
rushed thither to get a sight of the dead man, for there is 
no source of excitement so highly prized by the vulgar as 
the ghastly. At 3 in the afternoon the bam was crowded. 
The people jostled one another closely upon the wide thresh- 
ing-floor, and the wheat^mow alongside contained, among 
others, at least twenty women whose appetite for the hor- 
rible bad led them to elbow their way early to this command- 
ing situation. The hay-mow at the other end of the floor 
was full of men and boys, and the high girders were occu- 
pied by curious spectators, perched like rows of chimney- 



THE CORONERS INQUEST 183 

swifts at the time of autumnal flitting. More adventurous 
youth had managed to climb even into the dizzy collar-beams 
under the comb of the bam, to the dismay of the mason- 
swallows whose young were sheltered in adobe houses at- 
tached to the rafters. There were heads, and pendant legs, 
and foreshortened arms enough in the upper part of the bam 
to suggest a ceiling-fresco of the Last Judgment by an old 
Italian master. Other curious people had crowded into 
the horse stables below the wheat-mow, and were peering 
over the manger into the threshing-floor and intermingling 
their heads with those of the beasts of the staU, much as the 
aforementioned old Italian painters mix up brute and human 
faces in their Nativity pieces. The crowd upon the floor 
itself stretched out of the wide-open double doors on each 
hand, beyond which there was a surging mass of people 
blindly gravitating toward the center of excitement, though 
all the proceedings were invisible and inaudible to them. 

On two boards supported by kegs and boxes lay the life- 
less body of Lockwood. The pitiful sight of the pallid face 
and the eyes sunken in their sockets exasperated the spec- 
tators. Between the body and the hay-mow the coroner 
took his place on the only chair in the bam ; at the opposite 
side of the corpse the jury was seated on improvised benches. 
Markham, the sheriff's deputy, assisted by a constable, kept 
back the press, whose centripetal force threatened at every 
movement to overwhelm the innocent jurymen. 

As a matter of course, the first witness sworn was a doc- 
tor. Coroners begin at the beginning by first proving that 



184 TEE GRAY SONS 

the deceased is duly dead, and so within their jurisdiction ; 
and by finding out by just what means the knife, rope, 
poison, or pistol ball severed the thread of existence. The 
human passion for completeness is as much prone to show 
itself in law proceedings as in art performances j coroners' 
inquests like to go down to the physiological principles that 
underlie the great fact of practical importance, and to in- 
quire what was the name and function of the particular 
artery the severance of which put an end to consciousness 
in a set of ganglia which, with their complicated adjuncts, 
constitute what we call a man. It was in this case settled 
very promptly that the unfortunate deceased came to his 
death by a charge of buckshot. I shall not entertain the 
reader with the anatomical particulars, although these 
proved to be of the most pungent interest to the auditory 
at the inquest, and were scientifically expounded in every 
cross-roads grocery in the county for months afterward. 
There are old men in Illinois who have n't got done explain- 
ing the manner of it yet. But the important thing was ac- 
complished when the coroner and his jury were convinced 
that the man was not only apparently, but scientifically, and 
therefore legally, dead ; thus a basis was laid for the subse- 
quent proceedings. 

It is one of the strong points of a coroner that he knows 
nothing about what is held to be competent testimony, — 
nothing of the strict laws of relevancy and irrelevancy. He 
therefore goes to work to find out the truth in any way that 
seems good to him, without being balked by that vast net- 



THE CORONERS INQUEST 185 

work of regulations which are sure to embarrass the best 
endeavors of a more learned court. Markham was sworn 
immediately after the doctor had finished. It was his busi- 
ness to identify Tom's pistoL I fancy a lawyer might have 
insisted that no foundation had been laid for this testimony ; 
but to the coroner it seemed the most orderly way, immedi- 
ately after proving that Lockwood had been killed, to show 
the weapon with which he might have been killed. Mark- 
ham swore to finding this pistol in Tom's room ; and the 
ocular proof of the existence of such a weapon, in juxtapo- 
sition with the ghastly evidence before them of Lockwood's 
, violent death, went far to establish Tom's guilt in the minds 
of the people. Then other witnesses swore to Tom's pres- 
ence on the camp-ground ; and two young men from Moscow 
had heard him threaten, some weeks before, that he would 
shoot George Lockwood, 

It was just when the evidence of these two was finished 
that the people on the threshold of the south door of the 
barn began to sway to and fro in a sort of premonitory 
wave-motion, for outside of the door Sheriff Plunkett, hav- 
ing just arrived from Moscow with Tom Grayson, was bat- 
tling with the condensed crowd in an endeavor to reach the 
presence of the coroner. 

" You can't git through, Sher'f," said one man, " This 
crowd's so thick you could bore a nauger into it." 

But the sherifPs progress was aided by the interest of the 
people in Tom. They could not resist turning about to look 
at him, and every movement displaced some human mole- 
16* 



186 THE GRATSOXS 

cules ; SO that Plunkett, aided by the respect shown to him 
as an oflScer, was able to push a little farther in at every 
budge. But the people were not content with looking at 
Tom. 

" You 've got to swing fer it, you young rascal," said one 
man as Tom passed. 

" Coward to shoot a man in the dark ! " muttered another. 

And ever as in this slow progress Tom came nearer to the 
center he felt the breath of the mob to be hotter. When he 
got within the door there was a confused rustle among the 
people on the threshing-floor, a murmur from those who 
jostled one another in the hay-mows, and a sound of indig- 
nation from the people seated on cross-beams and clinging 
to girders ; mutterings even came down from those lodged 
like overhanging angels in the dizzy collar-beams, fast by 
the barn-swallows' nests. Such excited crowds are choruses 
who wait for some one to give them the key ; the pitch of 
the first resolute voice determines the drift of feeling. If 
somebody had called out at this moment for fair play, the 
solvent feeling of the crowd might have crystallized about 
this one. But indignation got tongue first. 

" Hang him I ^ The words came from the comer of the 
threshing-floor farthest from the coroner, and in an instant 
the tide of feeling ran swiftly to that side. Tom recognized 
the harsh voice, and realized his danger in perceiving that 
the resentful Jake Hogan was leading those who sought to 
lynch him. 

When the sheriff, with Grayson, had penetrated to the 



THE CORONER' 8 INQUEST 187 

neighborhood of the coroner, the inquest was continued by 
calling David Sovine. This young man, with stylish trou- 
sers strapped down to patent-leather shoes, came forward 
chewing tobacco and affecting a self-confident swagger. He 
took the oath nonchalantly. 

" Tell us what you know of the murder of George Lock- 
wood," said the coroner. 

" Well, me an' George had been together, an' we parted. 
He was goin' to-wards his horse an' me to-wards the camp- 
meetin'. I was about twenty foot, or maybe twenty-five foot, 
away from 'im when along come Tom Grayson an' says, says 
he, ' I 'm boun' to git even with you wunst f er all.' I looked 
aroun', an' Tom was aimin' his pistol. George Lockwood 
says, says he, ' Don't shoot me, Tom ' ; but Tom he up an' 
fired, an' George jist keeled over like, an' never said another 
word. Tom run off as fast as his legs could carry him. I 
run up to George, an' he was layin' there dead 's a door-nail. 
Then the crowd come a-runnin', an' that's about all I know 
about it." 

"D' you remember the pistol!" 

" Yes." 

"Was it Uke this!" 

" Yes 5 an ole-f ashioned big bore single-barrel like that, I 
should say." 

" That '11 do. You can stand aside," said the coroner. 

"Hang him!" cried Jake Hogan; and there were other 
cries that showed how swiftly and terribly the current was 
setting in the direction indicated by Jake. 



188 THE GBAY80N8 

Tom Grayson was sworn. 

"Now," said the coroner, "you don't have to criminate 
yourself. If you cannot answer any question asked of you 
without criminating you, you can decline to give an answer." 

For how many ages have Anglo-Saxons made their criminal 
law ridiculous by this rule ! 

" Now," the coroner went on, " tell us just what you know 
about the shooting at the camp-meeting." 

" I don't know anything at all about it," said Tom with 
agitation. "I have n't seen George Lockwood since I 
quarreled with him in Moscow till I saw him here." And 
he pointed with a trembling finger to the stark form of the 
man he had hated. 

" Lie ! " cried Hogan. The coroner called, " Order I " 

" Aw ! " said one of the women in the wheat-mow. " To 
think he could have the impedence to hole up his head an' 
talk that away un the corpse right there afore his eyes ! " 

" Do you know that pistol ! " asked the coroner. 

Tom took it up and looked at some marks on the butt 
of it. 

" It 's mine," he said. 

" Did you have it at the camp-meeting !" 

'* No, nor any other." 

" You are not obliged to criminate yourself," said the 
coroner again ; " but did n't you see Lockwood killed ! " 

*^ No," said Tom. " It 's all a lie that Dave Sovine swore 
to, and he knows it. I was n't on that part of the ground." 

" Hang him ! " interjected Hogan. 



THE CORONERS INQUEST 189 

" The bah-y is awful plucky, upon me sowl," said MagiU, 
who was standing on a plow-beam in order to see over the 
heads of the crowd. '^ It would be a pity to hang a man of 
such good stuff." 

" The bare-faced villain I " growled the man next to him, 
and the unfavorable impression evidently had way with the 
crowd. When people have once made up their mind as to 
how a thing has happened, they do not like to have their 
fixed notions disturbed. Tom's heart sank ; he could see that 
the chance for his getting back to the jail alive was growing 
smaller. Hiram Mason had attached himself to Tom and 
the sheriff, and had elbowed his way to the front in their 
wake ; the people, supposing that he had some official func- 
tion, made way for him. He now got the ear of the sheriff. 

" If you don't get Tom away at once he 11 be lynched," 
he said. 

" I know it ; but I don't know what to do," said Plunkett. 
"If I make any move, I '11 fetch the crowd down on Tom." 

" Get him down into the cow-stable under the bam, and 
let Markham take him off. You stay here and they won't 
suspect that he 's gone." 

There was something pitiable about the sheriff's inability 
to make a decision at a critical moment. He looked at the 
angry crowd, who were paying little attention to the testi- 
mony of unimportant witnesses, and he looked at the coro- 
ner. He did n't like to bear the responsibility of having a 
prisoner taken from his hands ) still more he disliked to 
offend so many voters. 



190 TEE GBATSONS 

'^ Settle it with Markham and the coroner,'' he said, sneak- 
ing out of the decision he could not bring himself to make. 

" Mr. Markham/' whispered Hiram, " the sheriff wants you 
and me to get Tom off. I 'U get the horses ready, and you 
and Tom are to come out through the cow-stable. Speak 
to the coroner about it, and don't let the crowd see it. If 
we don't get him away before this thing breaks up he 'U 
never get to town alive.'' 

" All right," said Markham. " I 'U be in the cow-stable 
with Tom when you 're ready." 

Jake Hogan had already gone out to muster his men, and 
Hiram was very impatient at the long time it took him to work 
his way outward. He was a little annoyed when Magill, 
getting down from the plow-beam, stopped him to whisper : 

" I say, you 're Tom's friend. Now what can I do for the 
bah-y ! I s'pose he 's guilty, but I don't want to see such a 
bowld gintleman as he is lynched by such a set of howlin' 
blackguards as these." 

" Go over there and stand in front of Tom, so that the 
people won't see him and Markham when they get down into 
the cow-stable." 

Having whispered this between his teeth. Mason pain- 
fully worked his way out of the door, while Magill pushed 
forward toward the coroner. For Magill the people made 
way as best they could, supposing that the clerk was one of 
the functionaries without whom the performance could not 
proceed. The coroner had acceded to Markham's proposi- 
tion and was contriving to protract the session. Magill called 



THE C0B0NEW8 INQUEST 191 

Sheriff Plunkett to him and made that worthy stand in 
nnimportant conversation with him, so that they two cov- 
ered from all observers first Markham's descent and then 
Tom's. The deputy sheriff and then his prisoner had to 
dimb over a hay-rack and thence down to the ground. The 
cow-stable was beneath that end of the bam which jutted 
over a hill-side descending to a brook. As nothing was to 
be seen from this stable, there was nobody in it but a few 
boys. 

When Mason came to say that he was ready, Markham 
passed out with his prisoner and down the hill-side to the 
bed of the brook, where Mason had brought the deputy's 
horse and old Blaze. Tom had been brought to the inquest 
in a wagon ] but as it was necessary to avoid the main road. 
Mason had unharnessed Blaze for Tom to ride. As the hoofs 
of the horses clattered down over the stones in the bed of 
the stream, Tom felt as a man might who had but just eluded 
the coils of a boa-constrictor. In a little while the two were 
galloping over the open prairie toward Moscow by by-roads. 

The prisoner's absence was observed ; but, as the sheriff 
remained, it was not at first suspected that he had got entirely 
away. People looked for him and inquired of one another 
where " they had put him." At length the testimony was 
all in, and the case was given to the jury. These '^ good 
men and true," as the old English law supposes them to be, 
, retired for consultation ; that is, they changed places with 
the coroner and stood with their faces toward the wall in 
the comer and their backs toward the crowd, which now 



192 THE GRATS0N8 

buzzed like a nest of indignant bumble-bees. After a few 
minutes, the jury turned and their foreman read the verdict : 

" We find that Gteorge Lockwood came to his death by 
being shot with buckshot, fired from a pistol by Thomas 
Grayson, Junior, and we recommend that the said Thomas 
Grayson be committed to answer to the charge of murder.'' 

When this formal condemnation had been read, the pas- 
sions of the crowd broke over all bounds, and the words of 
the coroner, formally ordering the commitment of the pris- 
oner, were not heard. Cries of '^ Hang him ! Hang him to the 
first tree I ^ mingled with curses, broke forth. Men swung 
themselves down from the high beams and there was a rush 
from the mows, while the women among the wheat-sheaves 
drew back in terror as they might have done in a rising 
hurricane. The crowd surged hither and thither about the 
outside of the bam, and surrounded the sheriff and the 
coroner, demanding the prisoner. It was more than five 
minutes after the verdict was in before it was believed that 
Tom had been taken away, and then the mob were bewildered 
by the certainty that nobody had seen him taken down the 
Moscow road. Foiled in their purpose, they fell away, and 
the tide of passion began to ebb. But the more determined 
rallied about Hogan, and agreed to meet him at the Broad 
Run grocery after dark, to make arrangements for a trip to 
the county-seat during the night. 



XVII 



A COUNCIL OP WAR 




S soon as Zeke bad eaten the frngal supper of 
mush and milk that Mrs. Britton set out for 
him, he sought the dilapidated little Broad Run 
grocery. The building was of logs, and had a 
pair of deer's antlers over the door for a sign that it was in 
one sense a public house. The low door, with its threshold 
on the level of the ground, the one square, dingy little win- 
dow, and the shabby stick chimney, in the chinks of which 
the clay plaster was cleaving, gave the place a run-down 
expression. In looking at the building, one got a notion 
that it would like to slink away if it could. Zeke found 
nobody in but the proprietor, a boozy-headed looking man, 
with his hands usually in his trousers' pockets, and his 
swollen eye-lids never wide open. The stock of groceries 
was small ; two barrels of corn- whisky and one of molasses 
were the dominant elements ; a quart cup and some glasses 
stood on a dirty unpainted poplar counter, beside a pair of 
scales. The whole interior had a harmonious air of sloth, 
stupidity, and malpropriety ; and its compound odors were 

17 193 



194 THE GRAYSONS 

as characteristic as indescribable. Zeke waited about awhile, 
wondering that no one should have come to the rendezvous. 

"Where's Jake Hogan?'* he enquired of the "grocery- 
keeper." 

" I dunno." 

Zeke had anticipated this answer. The man never did 
know anything but the price of his liquors. It was the 
safest way for one who kept such a resort and heard so 
many confidences, and it was a way of answering questions 
that required the least exertion. 

" But I wuz to meet him here.'' 

" Oh, you wuz ! " Then, after awhile, he asked, " Been 
over to his house ? " 

" No." 

The grocery-keeper did not say any more, but Zeke con- 
jectured that the meeting had adjourned to Jake Hogan's 
cabin for greater privacy. Zeke made his way over there 
with much stumbling, for the night was rather a dark one in 
the woods. The cabin which was now owned and occupied 
by Hogan was, like most of the Broad Run dwellings, 
built of round logs with the bark on ; that is to say, the 
bark had been left on when the house was built, but years 
of rain and sun had peeled off about half of it, and left the 
house spotted and ragged. There was but one room, and 
one might enter this without ceremony, for the door stood 
wide open, though not on account of hospitality. This 
door was made of heavy puncheons and had originally hung 
on wooden hinges, but the uppermost hinge had come off six 



A COUNCIL OF WAR 195 

months before, aod though Jake had "'lowed to fix it" 
nearly every day since, it had not been repaired, for Hogan 
was a public-spirited citizen, deeply interested in politics, 
and in reformatory movements like the present one for 
hanging Tom Grayson ; and it was not to be expected that 
such a man could, in the nature of things, spare time to 
put a paltry hinge on a door, when grave questions were 
always likely to be mooted at the grocery. So every morn- 
ing the clumsy door was lifted aside ; at bed-time it was 
with difficulty partly hoisted and partly shoved back into 
its place. If the night was very warm, the ceremony of 
closing the door was omitted. Locks were not necessary in 
a neighborhood like Broad Run, where honesty was hardly 
a virtue, there being so little temptation to theft. Jake's 
house contained a rude home-made bedstead of poles, and 
two or three stools of the householder's own manufacture. 
Hogan " lowed" some day to make one or two more stools 
and a table. At present, he and his wife patiently ate from 
skillet and pot, until the table should be made. It was 
something to have conceived the notion of a table, and with 
that Jake rested. There was a large fire-place built of 
sticks and clay ; it had stones for andirons and was further 
furnished with a pot, not to mention a skillet, which stood 
on two legs and a stone and had lost its handle. Jake 
always 'lowed he 'd get a new skillet ; but he postponed it 
until he should have more money than was absolutely need- 
ful to buy indispensable clothes and whisky with. There 
was also a hoe, on which Mrs. Jake baked cold water hoe- 



196 TUE GRAYSOSS 

cakes when she had company to supper. For shovel, a 
rived clapboard had been whittled into a handle at one end. 
Some previous owner had been rich enough and extrava- 
gant enough to have the four-light window glazed, but all 
the panes were now broken. An old hat, too shabby even 
for Jake to wear, filled the place of one of the squares of 
glass; the rest of the sash was left open for light and 
ventilation. 

Secure as Jake and his party felt from legal interference, 
they had chosen to retire to this cabin instead of remain- 
ing at the grocery. This secrecy was rather an involuntary 
tribute of respect for the law than an act of caution. Mrs. 
Hogan, whose household duties were of the lightest, had 
been sent away, and into Jake's cabin a party of twenty had 
crowded, so far as was possible for them to get in. Some 
stood outside of the door, and Zeke had to find a place at 
the broken window in order to hear what was going on. 
This was a muster of the leaders and the center of the party ; 
one of the " boys '' had been sent to the camp-ground to 
seek recruits who were not to be trusted in this council of 
war. The recruits were notified to assemble at the cross- 
roads " 'twix midnight un moon-up.'' 

The first that Zeke made out was that Jake was relieving 
his mind in a little speech : 

" D' yeh know they 've gone un set up the k-yards onto 
us, boys? Soon 's Uncle Lazar h-yer tole me 't Bob McCord 
ud come over h-yer a-huntin', I know'd he wuz arter sum- 
pin' ur nother besides b'ars. Bob 's purty tol'able cute, but 



A COUNCIL OF WAR 197 

he a'n't the on'y cute feller in the worP. Me 'n' Uncle Lazar 
jes laid fer 'im. Ketch Jake Hogan asleep, won' cheh ! 
Uncle Lazar, thar, when he jseen Bob a-comin' down the run 
weth a Var on 'is shoulder, he jes' soaks 'ira weth whisky, 
un then 'im un S'manthy worms it out 'v 'm what he wuz 
a-loafln' over yer fer un not at the eenques'. He would n' 
noways tell Uncle Lazar, but he *s kind-uh fond uv S'manthy, 
un she 's smart, S'manthy is. She jes' kind-uh saf-sawdered 
'im un coaxed 'im up, tell he could n' keep it in no longer, 
bein' a leetle meller, un he tole 'er 't 'e wuz a-spying aroun' 
so 's to let the shurruff know 'f we 'd got wind uv 'is plans, 
un 't 'e expected to have the larf on Jake to-morry. But 
Uncle Lazar 'n' me 've got that fixed up, un Bob wuz n't 
more 'n out-uh sight afore Uncle Lazar wuz a trit-trottin' 'n 
'is way, yeh know, fer Jake Hogan's. Bob 's a-comin' over 
to-morry to fetch back Uncle Lazar's mar' un have the larf 
onto us. But he took jes' one too many pulls at Lazar's 
jug." Here Jake paused to vent a laugh of self-complacency 
and exultation. 

" Thunder 'n' light'in', Jake," called out one of the party 
who stood outside of the door, beyond the light of the 
flickering blaze on the hearth, " what did Bob tell S'manthy ! 
Why don' choo tell us, anyways? You 're a long time 
a-gittin' to the p'int. The business afore this yer meetin' is 
to hang Tom Grayson to a short meter toon. Now you teU 
me, what 's Uncle Lazar's whisky-jug got to do weth that? 
What 's the needcessity uv so much jawt" 

** Don' choo fret the cattle now," said Jake. ** You want 
17* 




XVIII 
ZEKE 

aWO things lay heavy on Zeke Tucker's mind 
^ he hastened toward Britton's. For the 
; life of him he eonld not tell whether Perrys- 
burg was the destination to which Bob wished 
to send Jake, or whether Jake might not be right in sup- 
posing that Bob had incautiously betrayed his own secret. 
But this was Bob's affair ; what troubled him most was to 
devise a way by which he could get possession of a piece of 
candle. Mrs. Britton would not allow a hired man to have 
a light. " Any man that could n' feel 'is way into bed mus' 
be simple," she said. 

Zeke found the old people out of bed later than usual. 
Mrs. BrittoD had been churning, and the butter " took a con- 
trary streak," as she expressed it, and refused to come until 
she and the old man had churned alternately for two hours. 
She was working the butter when Zeke came in and sat 
down. Watching his cliance, he manned to snatch a tiny 
bit of candle-end that had been carefully laid up on tlie 
mantel-piece. But when Mrs. Britton's lighted candle flick- 



ZEKE 201 

ered in its socket, she went to get the piece that was already 
in Zeke's pocket. 

'' I declare to goodness," she said, as she fumbled among 
the bits of string and other trumpery on the shelf, " where 's 
that piece of candle gone to t Do you know, Cyrus ? " 

This question was addressed to her husband, who never 
did know where anything she wanted " had gone to." But 
she always gave vent to her feelings by asking him, and he 
always answered, as he did now, with an impassive " No." 

" Zeke, d' you see that short piece of candle that was here 
on the shelf!" 

Zeke rose and affected to look for it. 

" I don't see nothin' uv it," he said at length. 

" Well, if the rats ain't a-gittin' no better fast. Who 'd 
a' believed they 'd 'a' got up on the shelf ? " So saying, she 
reluctantly lighted a fresh candle to take her butter to the 
spring. 

By the time she was well out of the back door, Zeke, with 
one eye on the lethargic Britton, who was now a-doze in his 
chair, raked a hot coal from the ashes, and blowing it to a 
flame lighted his bit of candle with it. Then he quickly 
climbed to the loft, and opening the window-shutter put the 
candle in the glassless window on the side of the chimney 
toward Perrysburg. He was shivering for fear the old 
woman would see the light, though she was at the other end 
of the house, and he was yet more afraid that Bob would 
not see it before it should burn out. Hearing, at length, the 
crack of Bob's rifle, he extinguished the expiring wick and 



202 THE GHAYSOXS 

slipped down the ladder without arousing the slumbering 
old man. 

'' I expect they 's another man shot/' said Mrs. Britton, when 
she came back. If she had ever been a planter's wife her 
pronunciation had probably degenerated, though her archaic 
speech was perhaps a shade better than the '4ow down" 
language of Broad Bun. 

" Why ! " asked Zeke. 

'^Oh! I heerd a gun go off, un guns ain't common at 9 
o'clock at night An' I thought I saw a flicker uv light in 
our loft jus' now, but it went out as soon as the gun went 
off. It made me feel creepy, like the house was ha'nted." 
And she again began to look on the mantel-piece for the lost 
bit of candle which she was loath to give up. 

" I 'm a-goin' to bed," said Zeke, " ghos's ur no ghos's ''; and 
he again mounted the ladder. After he had lain on the bed 
with his clothes on for an hour, keeping himself awake with 
difficulty, he felt sure that the old couple below stairs must 
be sound asleep. He softly opened the square window, the 
wooden shutter of which made no sound, as it swung on 
hinges of leather cut from an ancient boot-top. Then he 
climbed out on the projecting ends of the sticks which 
composed the chimney, and cautiously descended to the 
ground. 

" Cyrus I " said Mrs. Britton to her husband ; " did n't you 
hear that noise 1 " 

'* What noise ! " 

*' That scratchin' kind-uh noise inside of the chimblev." 



ZEKE 203 

^' No, I don't hear nothin' " ; and the old man made haste 
to resume his sleep where he had left off. 

" I do believe this house is ha'nted,'' sighed Mrs. Britton 
to herself. 

The next morning when she woke up she called out, ac- 
cording to her wont, to the hired man in the loft : " Zeke ! 
Zeke! O Zeke I'' 

She got no reply. Vexed of all things that a hired man 
should lose a minute of time, she called again in vain. A 
minute later she was about to get up and go to the ladder 
so as to be better heard, when there came to her the sound 
of Zeke chopping wood at the back door. 

" Well, ef the world ain't a-comin' to 'n end, when Zeke 
Tucker gits up an' goes to choppin' of 'is own accord ! ^ 

When Zeke came in to breakfast, she said : " You 're out 
bright and airly this momin'." 

" Yes ; I could n' sleep." 

" D' you hear that scratchin' in the chimbley ! " 

" Ya-as," said Zeke, with hesitation. He was relieved that 
the conversation should be broken at this point by the 
entrance of the old man from the stable. 

" Zeke," said Britton, as he drew his chair to the table, 
"what 's the matter with ole Gray!" 

" I never noticed nothin' when I gin him Is oats. But 
't wuz n't fa'rly light then.'' 

" He 's been rode. They 's sweat marks onto him, un the 
saddle 's wet yet." 

The old woman put down her knife and fork. '* That's 



204 THE GBAYSOXS 

witch-work/' she said. "First, the butter would n't come, 
then I lost that piece of candle ; un it 's teetotally gone too. 
Now rats don't never git up onto that shelf. Then I see a 
flicker of light in the loft while I was puttin' away the but- 
ter, an' you V Zeke a-settin' h-yer by the fire. Then I wuz 
waked up by that scritch-scratchin' soun' in the chimbley, 
fer all the world like somebody a-climbin' down into the 
room, though they wa' n't nobody clum down, fer I listened. 
It kep' Zeke awake all night an roused 'im out airly this 
morniu'. Th' ain't nothin' short of witch- work gits Zeke 
up an' sets him to choppin' wood 'thout callin'. An' it 's 
been a-ridin' ole Gray. Maybe the ghost of that feller that 
wuz shot over 't the camp-meetin' 's a-ha'ntin' roun' the 
country, like. I don' b'lie ve it '11 ever be quiet tell the feller 
that shot 'im 's hung." 

The old man was very taciturn, and Zeke could not di- 
vine whether he was impressed by his wife's mysterious " it," 
or whether, suspecting the truth about old Gray, he thought 
best to say nothing. For if anything should set Mrs. Brit- 
ton going she would not stop scolding for days, and Britton 
knew well that Zeke would not be the chief sufferer in such 
a tempest. 

As soon as he had eaten his breakfast Zeke went out to 
dig early potatoes in Britton's farther field. About 9 o'clock 
a dod of earth came flying past his legs and broke upon his 
hoe. He turned to look, and saw another one thrown from 
the corn-field near by ascending in a hyperbolic curve and 
then coming down so near to his head that he moved out of 



ZEKE 205 

the way. He laid down his hoe and climbed the fence into 
the corn-field, which at this time of the year was a dense 
forest of green stalks higher than a man's head. Bob McCord 
was here awaiting Zeke. He had left Lazar Brown's horse 
tied in a neighboring papaw patch. 

" Did you go to Perrysburg ! " began Bob. 

" Yes," said Zeke. " You played it onto 'em good. I wuz 
ruther more 'n half fooled myself. I 'lowed sometimes ut 
maybe S'manthy had come it over you." 

Bob laughed all through his large frame. 

" When we got to Perrysburg un come to wake up the 
shurruflf he wuz skeered, un ast what 't wuz we wuz arter. 

" ' That murderer,' says Jake Hogan, like a ghos' fum 
behin' his false-face. 

" * What murderer ! ' says the shurmff. * They hain't no 
murderer in the jail.' 

" ' They hain't, sonny ! ' says Jake, weth sech a swing. 
' You ketch us with yer dodrotted f oolin',' says he ; ' we hain't 
the kind to be fooled. We know what we 're about afore 
we begin, we do. We hain't the sort to be tuck in by lawyers 
nur nobody else,' says he. 

'* ' I tell you they hain't no murderer h-yer,' says the 
shurruff, says he. 

" ' Tie 's ban's, boys,' says Jake, in Jake's way, yeh know, 
like as if he wuz king uv all creation." 

" Weth Eelenoys throwed in like a spool uv thread, to 
make the bargain good," suggested Bob, losing all prudence 
and giving way to a long, unrestrained peal of laughter. 
18 



206 THE GRAYJSOyS 

" Jes^ 80," said Zeke. " When we come to the jail un got 
the door open they wuz n't nobody thar but Sam ByfieP, the 
half -crazy feller that wuz through h-yer last ytfr a-playin' 
his fool tricks, un a man name' Simmons, as had stole half 
a cord uh wood. Simmons was that skeered when we come 
in, 't 'e got down on 'is knees un begged, un whined, un 
sniffed, un says, 'Boys,' says he, 'I hain't noways purpared 
to die. Don't hang me, un I won't never steal nothin' 
ag'in,' says he." 

" 1 11 bet Byflel' wuz n't skeered,'^ said Bob. 

" Not him. He 'd been a-playin' the angel G^aberl about 
Perrysburg weth a long tin horn, blowin' it into people's 
winders at midnight, just to skeer 'em un hear 'em howl, un 
the watchman had jugged him. Jake says, says he, * Sam 
Byflel', tell us whar that air murderer is.' Jake put 'is voice 
away down in 'is boots, — it sounded like a mad bull a-bel- 
lerin'. But Sam jest liPs Jake^s false-face, this away, un 
peeps under, un says, 'Jake Hogan,' says 'e, ' I knowed it 
mus' be you by yer big-feelin' ways. It's mighty hard fer 
a man that 's a nateral born to make a fool uv hisself ; but, 
Jake, I '11 be demed ef you hain't gone un done it this 
time.' 

" ' Hain't Tom Grayson h-yer 1 ' says Jake. 

" ' No,' says Byflel'. ' Somebody 's been a-greenin' on you, 
Jake ; Tom hain't never been h-yer,' says he. 

" ' Aw, you 're a lunatic, Sam,' says Jake. 

" ' Ditto, brother,' says Byflel'. 

'* The shurrufPs folks had run out, un 'bout this time they 



ZEKE 207 

'd began to raise the neighbors, un somebody run to the 
Prisbaterian church un commenced to pull away on the new 
church bell, 't a man Down East sent 'em. We thought we 'd 
better be a-lightin' out mighty soon. But time we wuz in 
our saddles crack went a gun fum behin' the court-house. 
I s'pose 't wuz shot into the air to skeer us; but Jake,. like 
a fool, out weth his pistol un shot back. The Perrysburg 
I)eople wuz like a bee-gum that 's been upsot. The people 
was now a-runnin', some one way un some t' other, im more 
guns wuz fired off fum summers, — we never stopped to 
eenquire fum whar, tell we 'd got safe acrost the county 
line. One uv them guns must 'a' been a rifle, un it must 
'a' been shot in bloody yamest, fer I heerd the bullet 
whiz.'' 

*' You never stopped to say good-bye ! " said Bob. 

" Not me ! Ole Gray wuz the very fust boss that pulled 
hisself acrost the corporation line. I did n' seem to feel no 
interest in stayin', noways." 

" What 's Jake goin' to do nex' thing 1 ^ asked Bob, not 
yet recovered from his merriment. 

" Wal, about half the fellers rode straight on home un 
would n't talk to Jake at all, 'cept maybe to cuss 'im now 
un then fer a fool, on'y fit to hole a snipe-bag fer Bob Mc- 
Cord. They swore they wuz done go'n' under sech as him. 
But Jake ain't the kind to gin it up ; he says 'f 'e kin get a 
dozen he 's boun' to go a Sunday night when they '11 be lots 
of fellers about the camp-meetin', un some uh them '11 go too, 
maybe." 



208 



THE GBAYSOXS 



" We '11 have to see about that," said Bob, getting up. 
" But you stick to Jake, closte ez a cuckle-burr." 

'' All right," said Zeke, remembering his potato patch and 
looking ruefully at the ascending sun as he hurried back to 
his work. 

Bob went on his way and returned the horse to Lazar 
Brown's house ; but Uncle Lazar was nowhere to be seen, 
and S'manthy was evidently out of humor. 

" S'mauthy, yer 's yer hoss,'' said Bob. 

"Wal, you thes let'im loose thar; I hain't got no time 
to bauther." 

"How 'd the boys come out las' night down 't Moscow !" 

"Aw, I don' know, un I don' keer, neither. You 're a 
low-lived passel uh loafers, all uh yeh, big an^ leetle." 

"W'y, S'manthy! You wuz that sweet las' night." 

S'manthy was in a hurry about something, but she showed 
her irregular teeth as she disappeared around a comer of 
the cabin, looking back over her shoulder to say : 

"You 'e a purty one, hainch yeh, now!" 

Bob's face shone with delight as he went on up the run to 
look for the bear's cubs. He succeeded in killing one of 
them and capturing the other alive, but he had to take 
them and his wounded dog home afoot. It seemed too 
great a venture to ask S'manthy to lend the hoFse a second 
time. 



XIX 



THE MYTH 




AKI?S leadership had received a severe blow, 
and Bob could hardly believe that he would 
be able to muster a company again. But 
Hogan's vindictiveness and persistence ren- 
dered it probable that he would not rest in his present 
ridiculous position without making an effort to redeem 
himself, even if he had to act with a small party. 

" You see,'' Bob explained to Mason that Saturday night, 
" Jake 's got the most p'ison kind uv hold-on you ever seed. 
He 's shore to try 't over, fust or last." 
" He won't let you fool him again," said Mason. 
Bob smiled and picked up a chip, which he began to 
whittle as an aid to reflection. 

"It would be a juberous thing to try again. But I 'm 
goin' to see Pote Markham in the momin'. He '11 go apast 
h-yer to the camp-meetin', fer he 's a Methodis' by mar- 
riage, — that is, his wife 's a member, un that makes Pete 
feel 'z if he wuz a kind-uv a inember-in-law. Un Pete knows 

mighty well 't when the time comes roun' fer him to run fer 
18* 



209 



210 THE GBATSOXS 

office, it '11 be worth while to know pussidin' elders, un cir- 
cus-riders, un locus' preachers, un exhausters, un all sorts uv 
camp-meetin' people. Pete 's jes' as shore to go to camp- 
meetin' a Sunday momin' 'z a bear is to eat honey when he 
comes acrost a tumbledown bee-tree." 

The next morning Bob stood in his shirt-sleeves leaning 
over Mrs. Grayson's gate and watching the people that rode 
to the great Sunday assembly at the Union camp-ground. 
Many a staid plow-horse, with collar-marks on his shoulders, 
had been diligently curried and brushed to transform him 
into a stylish saddle-nag; and many a young man, with 
hands calloused by ax-helve and plow-handle, rode to-day 
in his Sunday best with a blooming girl by his side, or 
behind him, and with the gay heart of a troubadour in his 
breast. Fresh calico dresses, in which the dominant tint 
was either a bright pink or a positive blue, were flaunted 
with more pride than a princess feels in her lace and pearls. 
The woman who has worked and schemed and skimped to 
achieve her attire knows the real pleasure and victory of 
self-adornment. 

The early comers of this Sunday-morning procession are, 
in the main, Methodists going to eat bread and water with 
the brethren in the 9 o'clock love-feast assembly, to sing 
together the touching songs of fellowship, and to tell, and 
to hear told, the stories of personal trials and sorrows, — to 
taste the pleasure of being one of a great company wrought 
to ecstasy by a common religious passion. But as the 
summer sun mounts higher, the road is more and more 



THE MYTH 211 

thronged with a miscellaneous company. For at 11 o'clock 
the presiding elder, a great man of all the country round, 
will preach one of his favorite sermons, and all the world — 
believers and scoffers, doctors and lawyers, and judges and 
politicians — will be there to hear him marshal in new forms 
the oft-repeated arguments in favor of the divine origin of 
Christianity, or the truth of the Arminian system of Wesley, 
and to admire the dramatic effect of his weU-told anec- 
dotes and the masterly pathos of his peroration. The peo- 
ple no longer go in couples ; there are six and even ten in a 
group. And how well they sit their saddles ! There is no 
"rising to the trot," in the ungraceful fashion of New York 
and Boston gentlemen and ladies who have put away the 
tradition of ancestors of unrivaled horsemanship, to adopt 
from England an ugly custom excusable only in a land of 
fox-hunting. You might find girls in their teens in this 
company who ride with grace and dash over difllcult roads, 
and who could learn nothing worth their while from a rid- 
ing-master, — for to ride perfectly consists chiefly in riding 
as naturally and unconsciously as one walks, and that is 
rarely given to any but those that are to the saddle bom. 
But besides saddle-horses there are wagons, for wherever 
there is a prairie, wheels come early. One or two families 
not yet out of a pioneer state of existence go creaking pain- 
fully along in ox-carts ; and there are barefoot boys skur- 
rying afoot across fields to save distance. Everybody feels 
bound to go. The attraction of a crowd is proportioned to 
its greatness, like all other gravitation, and this one will 



212 THE GBATSOXS 

drain the country dry of people. Scarcely any one stays at 
home, as you see. There are little children in the wagons and 
on the croups of the saddle-horses, while some supernumer- 
ary ones are held in place on the withers ; it is in this way 
that the babies get their first lessons in horsemanship. At 
half-past 10 o'clock the roads are beclouded with dust that 
drifts to leeward, turning the green blades of the corn-field 
to gray and grizzling the foliage of the trees. All along 
the road there is the sound of voices in many keys — but 
all with a touch of holiday buoyancy in them. There is that 
universal interchange of good feeling which is only found 
in communities that have no lines of social cleavage. 
Everybody is talking to everybody, — about the weather, 
the crops, the latest weddings, the most recent deaths, and, 
above all, the murder at the camp-meeting. To this topic 
every party drifts when the Grayson farm-house comes in 
sight, if not before. Wild stories are repeated of Tom's 
profligacy, and of the causes that led to the feud between 
him and Lockwood. As the people come nearer to the house 
their voices fall into a lower tone, and they ride by the 
front gate in almost entire silence, scanning the house with 
eager curiosity, as though trying to penetrate the chagrin of 
those within. They all nod to Bob ; it is the common and 
indispensable civility of the country. Bob nods to all in 
turn and grunts in a friendly way at those with whom he is 
acquainted; but to his best friends he gives a cheerful 
" Howdy ! " 
At length the deputy sheriflp, Markham, appears, riding 



THE MYTH 213 

alongside of his wife. She is also escorted on the other side 
by Magilly the county clerk, who is saying the pleasantest 
things he can think of to her. When Markham arrives at a 
point nearly opposite the gate, Bob does not nod, but gives 
his head a significant jerk backward and to the left, — a 
laconic invitation to stop a moment, rendered the more 
explicit by the utterance in a low tone of a single word, 
" Pete ! ^ Markham draws rein and stops to hear what 
Bob has to say; and Mason, who has come out on the porch 
at that moment, descends to the gate to talk with Magill 
and Mrs. Markham, who have also pulled up. The whole 
five are presently engaged in conversation in one group, 
while the horses amuse themselves by thrusting their dusty 
noses through the cracks of the fence to nibble at such 
blades of grass as are within their reach. The sight of the 
deputy sheriff and the county clerk in front of the Grayson 
house piques yet more the curiosity of the passers-by, who 
wonder what those privileged folks can be talking about. 

" You cannot do that," Markham said presently, in reply 
to a suggestion that came from Mason. ^' It 's no use talking 
to the sheriff about moving Tom to Perrysburg. He 's 
made up his mind not to move him ; and if he did move 
him, Perrysburg would n't be a safe place." 

'^ The shairifif seems to have one eye on Broad Bun, ainh 
Pate ! " said Magill chafllngly. 

But Pete Markham neither smiled nor said anything in il. 
reply. 

'^ It 's a shame something can't be done for Tom," said 



214 THE OR A YSOXS 

Mason. " He 's got a right to a fair trial ; and we think he 's 
innocent." 

" I '11 do anything I can,** said Markham, whose memory 
had been haunted by the appealing face of Mrs. Grayson 
ever since his domiciliary visit in search of Tom's pistol. 

" I 'm not caring much whether he 's innocent or not, me- 
self," said Magill. " May be Lockwood aggravated 'im an' 
naded puttin' out of the way. All I say is, Tom faced that 
crowd the other day like a man, an' he 's a born gintleman 
in me own istimation; an' I 'd niver let a gintleman be hung 
by a gang of blackguards, if I could help it." 

" Broad Run don't vote for you, Magill," said Markham. 

" You would n't ixpict it to vote for a man with a clane 
shirt on, now would yet" 

" Well," said Bob, " I 've been a-thinkin' that ef Pete 
could make people b'lieve that they wuz another man wanted 
fer the shootin', it would sort uh muddle Jake's plans fer 
a while, un by that time liker 'n not Abe Lincoln '11 find out 
who the rale murderer is." 

" Tell me what 's the color of his hair, Pate ! " said Magill. 
" Then 1 11 help you foind him." 

" Well," drawled Markham, turning a little sidewise in 
the saddle to rest himself, and looking perfectly serious and 
secretive, " I have n't found out about his hair, — he wore 
a straw hat, you know. But he was a youngish fellow, with 
foxy whiskers under his chin." 

*'Middlin' small?" suggested MagiU, with a faint pucker 
of drollery about the corner of his mouth. 



THE MYTH 215 

'' Yes," said Markham, biting the butt of his beech switch 
meditatively. "Ruther under the average, I should say, 
without being small.^ 

"One eye a leetle crossed!'' Bob McCord inquired, 
laughing. 

" Bight eye a little em^," said Markham, waving his hand 
outwardly. " He had quarreled with Lockwood a good while 
ago and owed him a grudge. That 's the man." 

" Know his name !" put in MagilL 

" N-o. That 's one thing we 're trying to find out. He 
come from oflf East where Lockwood used to live. We 've 
got to try to find if anybody knows which way he went when 
he left the camp-meetiu' that night, and if anybody can tell 
just where he come from." 

" Oh ! I understand now what you 're after," said Magill. 
" There '11 be a plinty will remimber the man when you come 
to spake about him. Don't you say what you want him fer. 
I/ave all expliuations to me. I 'm not responsible, an' I '11 
let out the saycrits of the shairifPs office." 

The passers-by had grown visibly fewer in the last few 
minutes, and now the belated ones rode for the most part in 
a rapid trot or a gallop. Mrs. Markham began to warn her 
husband that there would not be a seat left ; so the horses' 
heads were drawn up, and the trio set forward with a nod 
of good-bye to Bob and the schoolmaster. 

Markham went to work in all seriousness to get informa- 
tion about the imaginary young man with red whiskers 
under his chin and an outward cast in one eye who had been 



216 THE GBAY80NS 

seen on the ground the night of the murder. Magill took 
occasion to remark that if the praycher 'd only 'a' known 
what Markham was looking for, and all about the rale facts 
of the murder, he might n't have held Tom up for an awful 
warnin' to the young that mornin'. But he supposed it did 
not matter whether you had the roight fellow or the wrong 
one, if you were only praychin\ Some of those who heard 
the clerk describe the smallish man with the red goatee and 
one eye out a little, thought they could remember having 
seen a man answering to this description ; but as they could 
not give any information tending to secure his arrest, Magill 
did not think it worth while communicating their knowledge 
to Markham. But he quoted their sayings and surmises to 
the next persons he spoke to ; so that, without ever straining 
his conscience to the point of positively asserting the sub- 
stantive existence of such a red- whiskered young man with 
a squint, he had almost come to believe in him by the time 
the day was over. 

The story reached Broad Run in two or three forms be- 
fore night, and served to throw Jake's forlorn hope into con- 
fusion. But Magill did not think best to leave the Broad 
Bun people to the mercy of rumor in so important a matter. 
He rode up to the grocery about half -past 5 in the afternoon, 
and having hitched his horse to a neighboring dogwood, he 
walked in with a good-evening to the group at the door. 
Going up to the counter he called up the whole party to drink 
with him, as became an Irish gentleman of generous spirit, 
who was, moreover, a prudent politician. But Broad Run 



THE MYTH 217 

had never taken a fancy to Magill ; there was a ceremoni- 
ousness about his attempts to flatter them which did not 
harmonize with their rough-and-ready ways. If he had said, 
" Come, boys, liquor up ! " they would have thought his man- 
ner perfect ; but he bowed blandly to Jake Hogan, and said, 
" Have something to drink, won't you ! " and so to the rest. 
They mentally condemned him as ^' too all-fired fine in his 
ways and too much dressed up for a free country." But 
they did not neglect the opportunity to drink at somebody 
else's expense. Jake Hogan was the more ready to accept 
such hospitality because he had been feeling a little depressed 
since his unlucky trip to Perrysburg. And now this story 
which he had heard of another man who might be the mur- 
derer had destroyed what chance he had of mustering a 
party for Moscow; for Jake's most devoted partisans did 
not like to run any risk of hanging the wrong man. 

^' Mr. Magill," said Jake, after he had turned his whisky- 
glass nearly to the perpendicular in the endeavor to extract 
the last drop, " what 's this yer story about Tom's not being 
the ginooine murderer t I don't take no stock in the yam, 
fer my part." 

" Well, it ain't best to say anything about it till they get 
the other man," said Magill, assuming a close look. '^ I hear 
they 're purty hot on his track." 

"What kind of a lookin^ creetur wuzzy!" asked Bijy 
Orimes, an oldish man with an effeminate chin and soft, fair 
cheeks which contrasted strangely with his slovenly and un- 
kempt appearance. Bijy had drunk his liquor, and now sat 
19 



218 THE GRAY SONS 

resting on a keg with his mouth dropped wide open ; it was 
a way he had of listening. 

" Well, I don't know anything only what I hear," said 
Magill. ** I 'm not the shairiff, you know. The story goes 
that he was a man with a red goatee — " 

" Un what f er sized man t ^ asked Bijy. 

" Rather under-sized, and with one eye a little walled," 
said Magill. 

" I 'm darned ef 't ain't the wery man I seed," said Bijy, 
who never failed to know something about everything. 
" He wuz comin' towurds the camp-meetin' that wery arter- 
noon. Dem ! " and he shut his mouth, and got to his feet 
in excitement " I kind-uh suspicioned 'im too,'' he added. 

*' Well, I don't know anything," said the clerk ; " but if 
they catch that stranger and prove it on him, — mind, I say, 
if they prove it, — count me for one that will help get the 
world rid of him by Broad Run law, as they call it. But 
I 've got to get on home, giutlemen. Good-bye, gintlemen, 
and good luck to you all!" So saying, Magill bowed 
respectfully. 

The rest nodded their heads and said good-bye. 

^' He 's too orful slick," said Jake, when Magill had gone. 
'' Makes me kind uv sick. Now I like a man ut talks out 
like a man, you know; without so much dodrott^d saf- 
sawder, un so on. He ain't none uh my kind, Magill hain't." 



XX 



LINCOLN AND BOB 




.ST by the "City HoteP in Moscow stood a 
beech-tree, as we have said, and under this 
tree were two or three benches. This umbra- 
geous spot was the cool and favorite loafing- 
place of the villagers, the trysting-place for making bargains 
or meeting friends. The ground was beaten by many feet 
to the hardness of a floor, and the village boys delighted 
to play marbles in this convenient spot. Their cries of 
" rounses," " taw,'' " dubs," " back licks," and "vent" might 
often be heard there before and after school hours. On one 
of these benches under the beech-tree Bob McCord had an 
interview with Tom Grayson's lawyer, according to appoint- 
ment, on the day of Lincoln's return from court at Perrys- 
burg. 

"What's this about lynching Tomt" Lincoln inquired. 
" A lot of f eDows rode into Perrysburg looking for him last 
Thursday night." 

" Yes," said Bob, with a hearty chuckle : " I put 'em onto 
that air track myself. They wuz oomin' down h-yer, but I 
made 'em think 't Tom wuz moved to Perrysburg." 

219 



220 THE GBAYSOyS 

" Are they going to try it again t ^ asked Lincoln. 

" Not right off; they 're sort-nh diseairaged like. A few 
uv 'em wuz cocked un primed to come a Sunday night, — 
sech uv 'em as had n't gin it up arter ridin' over to Perrys- 
burg, — but we fooled 'em ag'in. Pete Markham, the dep- 
itty sher'f, jes^ sidled over to camp-meetin' un let on 't he 
wuz a-lookin' fer somebody what knowed sumpin' about a 
young feller weth red whiskers un one eye a leetle crossed, 
like. MagUl, the clerk, went over to camp-meetin' un down 
onto the Bun, un gin it out on the sly like zif he could n' 
keep in, that they 'd diskivered the tracks uv a young feUer 
from another k-younty weth red whiskers, un so on, that 
had done the shootin'. The story run like a perrary fire in 
a high wind un sort-uh mixed 'em up in the'r minds, like. 
I 've got it fixed so as they can't come down unbeknownst 
to me ; un ef wust comes to wust, Vy, I 've got my eye sot 
onto a crowbar.'^ 

"A crowbar! What would you do with a crowbar. 
Bob?" asked Lincoln, with a puzzled contraction of the 
brows. " You would n't try to whale the whole crowd with 
it, would you t " 

" Wy, Abe, I 'low ef a rale tight pinch comes, to try a 
tussle weth that air jail. I don't know 's I could prize out 
one uv them air iron grates, but ef 't wuz to come to that, 1 
'd try to git Tom out uv harm's way. You say the word 
un I '11 find some way to let 'im out anyhow." 

" No, no ; don't do that. If he runs away he 11 be caught, 
and then he '11 be sure to be lynched, or hanged. Let me 



LINCOLN AND BOB 221 

try the law first, and then it '11 be time enough to use crow- 
bars afterward if I fail. Do you know Dave Sovine t ^ 

" When I see 'im. He 's an ornery kind uv a cuss. I 
don't know 's he rickollecks me." 

" So much the better if he does n't. You must get him 
to tell you all about the shooting — his story of it. Gtet 
him to tell more than was brought out at the inquest. Make 
him explain it, and find out if he 's going to clear out before 
the trial." 

" I heem tell 't he won't talk," said Bob. " The prose- 
cutin' attorney 's shut 'im up tight 'z bees- wax, they say." 

Lincoln mused awhile. ^' If the prosecuting attorney has 
shut him up, you must open him. Contrive some way to 
get his story and find out what he means to do." 

But it was not easy to encounter Dave in these days. 
Since he had acquired notoriety, as the only witness of the 
murder, he had been seized with an unprecedented diffi- 
dence, and kept himself out of public gaze. The boys 
about the village conjectured that he was "laying low for 
big game." Bob, however, had no objection to waiting for 
Sovine's coming. He liked this lurking for prey as a cat 
likes the watching at a mouse-hole. Besides, loafing of any 
sort suited Big Bob's genius. He could sit astride a barrel 
on the shady side of a grocery for hours with no sense of 
exhaustion. More than one day McCord had passed in this 
way, when at last Dave Sovine came in sight, walking 
rather hurriedly and circumspectly toward the center of the 
vUlage. Bob was in the middle of a hunting yam which 
19* 



222 THE GRAYSONS 

he was lazily telling to another loafer on the next barrel as 
he whittled a bit of hickory stripped from one of the hoops 
in front of him. Without betraying any excitement, he 
astonished his companions by bringing the long-drawn 
story to an abrupt conclusion. Then dismounting from 
his barrel he sauntered across the street in such a way 
as to encounter Dave and to fall in with the direction 
in which the latter was going. 

" Hot day ! ^ Bob said, as he intersected Dave's course at 
an acute angle. 

" Yes," answered the other. 

" How 's the com crap out your way f 

" Dunno," said Dave. 

" Goin' to be in town long t " Bob persisted. 

To this Dave made no resjwnse. He only turned oflf 
abruptly at the street-corner and left Bob behind. 

" A feller might as well try to git sugar-water by tappin' 
a dead sycamore as to git anything out uv him,'' Bob said 
to himself, as he turned and took the road toward Hubbard 
Township. 

As he walks homeward over the level prairie, which west- 
wardly has no visible limit. Bob can only think of one way 
to persuade So vine to talk, and that way is out of the reach 
of a man so impecunious as he. It is in vain that you thrust 
your great fists down into the pockets of your butternut 
trousers. Bob. You know before you grope in them that 
there is no money there. You have felt of them frequently 
to-day and found them empty; that is why you are going 



LINCOLN AND BOB 223 

home thirsty. Money will not be persuaded to remain in 
those pockets. Nevertheless, all the way home Bob mechan- 
ically repeats the search and wonders how he will get money 
to carry out his plan. He might go to Lincoln, but he has 
an instinctive feeling that Lincoln is what he calls ^^ high- 
toned/' and that the lawyer might see an impropriety in 
his new plan. By the time he passes into his own cabin he 
knows that there is no other way bnt to get the money from 
Mrs. Grayson. No easy task, Bob reflects. Mrs. Grayson 
has never shown any readiness to trust Bob McCord's 
business skill. 

But the next morning he takes the path to the Grayson 
house, walking more and more slowly as he approaches it, 
with head dropped forward and fists rammed hard into his 
pockets, while he whistles doubtfully and intermittently. 
Now and then he pauses and looks off scrutinizingly. These 
are the ordinary physical signs of mental effort in this man. 
In seeking a solution of any difficulty he follows his habits. 
He searches his pockets, he looks for tracks on the ground, 
he scans the woods. 

He approaches the back of the Grayson house and is 
relieved to see Barbara alone in the kitchen, spinning. 

'^ Tou see, BarVry," he said, as he half ducked his head 
in entering the door, — "you see, I 'm in a fix.'' 

" Won't you take a chair, Mr. McCord ! " said Barbara, as 
she wound the yam she had been spinning on the spindle 
and then stopped the wheel. 

" No, I 'm 'bleeged to yeh, I won't sed down," he replied. 



224 THE GRAY80NS 

holding himself awkwardly as with a sense that indoors was 
not a proper or congenial place for him. 

" Abe Lincoln sot me a sum im I can't noways git the an- 
swer. He wanted me to git out uh that air Dave Sovine a 
full account uh the lie he 's a-goin' to tell agin Tommy. But 
I can't git at it noways. The feller won^t talk to me. I 've 
thought uv ketchin' 'im by himself un lickin' 'im till 'e 'diet 
it out, but I 'm afeerd Abe 'u'd think ut that 'u'd flush his 
game afore he wuz ready to shoot. They ain't on'y jest one 
other way, un that 's to gamble weth Dave un coax his secret 
that away. But you see I 'm so oncommonly pore this year 
't I could n't gamble at a cent a game 'thout he 'd trust me, 
un he would n't do that, I 'low." 

After cross-questioning Bob a little, Barbara went into 
the sitting-room to her mother and Bob went to the outer 
door to breathe the open air while he waited. Barbara's 
mother positively refused to let go of a dollar of her precious 
little hoard of silver. 

" jy you think, Barb'ry, 't I 'd let a shifless kind uv a man 
like Big Bob have my money to gamble it away to that 
Sovine t No, I won't, and that 's all there is about it. Dave 
got a lot uv my money a-gamblin' with Tommy, an' he don't 
git no more uv it, that 's as shore as my name 's Marthy 
Grayson. They don't no good come uv gamblin' noways, 
an' I can't bear that Dave Sovine should git some more uv 
our money, an' him a-tryin' to swear away Tommy's life." 

Barbara stood still a minute to give her mother's indigna- 
tion time to spend itself. Then she said : 



LINCOLN AND BOB 225 

" Well, poor Tom ^U have to die, I suppose, if you can't bring 
yourself to give Bob something to help Abraham save him." 

Mrs. Grayson stood for several seconds in self -conflict. 
Then she replied, " Well, BarVry, you always %vill have your 
way.'' Saying this she turned irresolutely toward her money- 
drawer. ^^ I s'pose I 'd jest as well give up flrst as last. How 
much does Bob wantf 

" Ten dollars '11 be enough, he thinks." 

''Ten dollars! Does he think I 'm made out of money t 
Now, looky here, BarVry ; I 'm not a-goin' to give him no 
sech amount. Here 's Ave, an' you tell him I won't spare 
another red cent." 

Barbara took the silver pieces and went out to Bob. 

Possessed of funds. Bob again set out to meet Dave. 
This time he could not wait for Dave to come to town, but 
boldly sallied out along the road past the house of Sovine's 
father. How could he wait t His pockets and his fingers 
were burned by the possession of so much hard cash. He 
felt obliged to take it out and count it once or twice, and to 
make an inspection of his pockets, which had a treacherous 
way of coming into holes under the strain of the big, mus- 
cular hands, so often rammed into their depths for purposes 
of meditation. 

After walking past the Sovine house once or twice with- 
out encountering Dave, he sat down by a prairie brook, the 
gentle current of which slipped noiselessly along, dragging 
its margins softly against the grass, whose seed-laden heads 
at this season of the year hung over into the water, the mat- 



220 THE ORAYSONS 

ted blades lying prone upon the unbroken surface: — their 
tips all curved in one way mark the direction of the gentle 
stream. Bob reclined on the low bank, where he was con- 
cealed from the road by a little yellow-twigged water- willow, 
the only thing within a mile or two that coald be called a tree. 

After awhile Dave Sovine, sauntering, ruminating tobacco, 
and looking warily about, as was his way, came slowly along 
the road. When he caught sight of Bob he started, and 
paused irresolutely as though about to retreat. But seeing 
that Bob was looking at him, he recovered himself and 
came toward the reclining figure. Truth to tell, Dave was 
lonesome in retirement, and the sight of Bob had awakened 
a desire to talk. 

" Have you seed a man go a-past h-yer weth a bag of 
wheat on his hoss f " queried Bob. " I 'm a-waitiu' h-yer to 
buy a half -bushel uv seed wheat f er fall sowin' f om a feller 
what 's a-comin' in f om t' other eend uv the k-younty.'' 

The story was impromptu, and Bob had no time to fill in 
details. Dave looked at him suspiciously, and only replied 
by shaking his head. By way of confirming his theory of 
the reason for his waiting, Bob idly jingled the silver coins 
in his pocket as he talked about the craps and the relative 
advantage of living in the timber, where you can raise 
winter wheat, or out on the perrary. The sound of tinkling 
silver caught Dave's ear, as it was meant to. 

" Play a game of seven-up ! " said Dave languidly. 

" You 're too good a hand f er me,'' answered Bob with 
affected wariness. 

" Oh I we '11 only try small stakes. Luck 's ag'inst me 



LINCOLN AND BOB 227 

here lately" ; and he pulled out a well-worn pack of cards 
without waiting for Bob to reply. 

" No ; ef I play, I want to play weth my k-yards/' said 
Bob, who had a lurking hope of winning, notwithstanding 
Dave's reputation. 

" I don't mind where the cards come from," said Dave, as 
he took BoVs pack, which was in a worse state than his 
own. Then, with habitual secretiveness, he said, '^ Let's 
go into the corn-field.'' 

They crossed the road and climbed into the corn-field, 
seating themselves on the edge of the unplowed grassy 
balk between the com and the fence. Here they were hid- 
den and shaded by the broad-leaved horse and trumpet 
weeds in the fence-row. As was to be expected. Bob won 
rather oftener than he lost at first. After a while the luck 
turned, and Bob stopped playing. 

" You 'd better go on,'' said Dave. 

" I d' know," answered Bob ; " I 'm about as well off now 
as I wuz in the beginnin'. I low I 'd better hold up." 

" Aw, no ; let 's go on. You might make sumpin." 

" Well," said Bob, running the ends of the cards through 
his fingers, " ef you '11 tell me jest how that air shootin' 
tuck place, I will." 

'' I don't keer to talk about that," said Dave, with a non- 
chalant air, that hardly concealed his annoyance. '^ The 
prosecuting attorney thought I 'd better not." 

" I wuz n't at the eenques'," Bob pleaded, "un they 's so 
many stories a-goin' that I want to h-yer it f 'om you." 

" Oh, I know yow," said Dave. " You think I have n't 



228 THE GBATSOyS 

got my eye-teeth cut yet. You have been a-layin' for me 
and I know what you are here f er. Do you think I don't 
see through your winter wheat f I know you 're on Tom's 
side." 

" Well, in course I am,'' said Bob, roused to audacity by 
his failure to deceive. " But it mout be jest as well f er you 
to tell me. Un maybe a leetle better. It mout be the very i 
k-yard f er you to throw at this p'int in the game." And 
Bob's face assumed a mysterious and suggestive look as he 
laid his cards on the grass and leaned forward regarding 
Dave. 

" Well," said Dave, in a husky half -whisper, letting his 
eyes fall from Bob's, " I '11 tell you what : I don't really 
keer to have Tom hung, un I 've been f eelin' bad un wishin^ 
I could git out ov it. Ef I had anuff money to go to New 
Orleans like a gentleman, I 'd just light out some night> 
and give Tom a chance for his life." 

" Maybe you mout git the money," said McCord, picking 
up his cards. " But your story would n' hang him nohow, 
I 'low." Here Bob laid down a half-dollar for a new game, 
and Dave covered it. 

"Of course, if I stay he's got to swing," said Dave; and 
by way of proving this to Bob, he told his story of the shoot- 
ing with some particularity, while he proceeded to win 
one half-dollar after another almost without interruption. 
"Now," he said, when he had told the story and answered 
Bob's questions, " you can see that 's purty tolerable bad. I 
sh'd think they 'd ruther I 'd clear out. An' if somebody 'd 



LINCOLN AND BOB 229 

give you a hundred dollars an' you 'd let me play three or 
four games of poker with you some fine day I 'd make tracks, 
an' the prosecuting attorney 'd have to get along without 
me.'' 

By this time all of the five dollars that Barbara had fur- 
nished, except the last twenty-five-cent piece, had passed 
from Bob's reluctant hands to Dave Sovintfs greedy pockets. 
This one quarter of a dollar Bob had prudently placed in 
the great pocket of his hunting-shirt, that he might have 
something to fill his stone jug with. For though he was 
devoted to the Graysons' side of the controversy, Bob McCord 
could hardly be called a disinterested philanthropist ; and 
he held that even in serving one's friends one must not 
forget to provide the necessaries of life. 

" You 're awful good on a game," said Bob, with a rueful 
face. " You 've cleaned me out, by hokey ; I '11 see ef I can't 
git you that hundred dollars, so 's you kin win it. But it 11 
take time fer the Widder Grayson to raise it, I 'low." 

" Oh I they ain't nopartWlar hurry," said Dave, cheerfully 
counting over his winnings and stowing the silver about in 
his pockets as a ship-master might distribute his ballast. 
" Only if I don't get the money I '11 have to stay h-yer an' 
go to court, I guess." And Dave hitched up his trousers 
and walked off with the air of a man who has a master-stroke 
of business in view. 

Lincoln came to town the next week and Bob told him 
the story, while Lincoln made careful notes of Dave's account 
of the shooting. 
20 



230 THE GRAYSOyS 

** He says ef Widder Grayson '11 let me have a hunderd 
dollars, un I '11 let him play draw poker fer it, he '11 light 
out fer parts onknown.'' 

" Oh ! he wants pay, does he t " And the young lawyer 
sat and thought awhile. Then he turned full on Bob and 
said: 

" Could I depend on you to be in court at the trial without 
fail, and without my sending a subpoena t" 

" Oh, I '11 be there un nowheres else,'' said Bob. " You 
need n't soopeeny me. 1 11 come 'thout callin', f oiler 'thout 
tollin', un stan' 'thout hitchin'." 

** Now if Dave Sovine comes after you for that hundred 
dollars, you 'd better put him off, as easy as you can. If we 
should buy him off we would n't want to give the prosecution 
time to fetch him back." 

Bob thought he saw a twinkle in Lincoln's eye as he said 
this ; a something in his expression that indicated more than 
he said. But though he looked at the lawyer curiously, he 
got no further light. That evening, as Bob passed the Gray- 
son farm-house, he told the anxious Barbara something 
about it, and added : " Abe Lincoln 's powerful deep. He 's 
got sumpin ur nuther in 'is head 't I can't noways see into. 
I don't half believe 't 'e means to buy up that low-lived 
scoundrel arter all. He acts like a man that 's got a dead- 
fall all sot, un is a-tryin' to honey-fugle the varmint to git 
'im to come underneath." 

And Barbara took what comfort she could out of this 
assurance. 



XXI 

HIBAM AND BABBARA. 




^0 Barbara, indeed, the unrelieved appreheneion 

T^^ and Buspense of those long, hot August days 
^Js were almost intolerable. The frequent excur- 
I along to the Moscow jail, to cany some tidbits 
of home cookery, or some article for Tom's personal com- 
fort, afforded a practical ontlet to feeling and a relief from 
the monotony of passive suffering, but these joarneys also 
brought sharp trials of their own to Barbara's courage and 
self-control. She might not betray to Tom or to her mother 
how much she suffered ; it was for her to support both the 
one and the other. 

Doubtless it would have been a relief could she have t«ld 
Hiram Mason all the dreadful apprehensions that haunted 
ber during the long, sleepless nights. But from the hour 
of Mason's entering the bouse he bad avoided coofldential 
relations with Barbara, Before and after school Hiram 
attended to all those small cares that about a farm-house 
usually fall to the lot of a man. Gtentle and oonsiderate to 
Mrs. GraysoD and Barbara, be preserved toward the latter 



232 THE OliAYSOXS 

a careful reserve. He could not resume the subject discussed 
the evening they had peeled apples by the loom ; it seemed 
out of the question that he should talk to Barbara of such 
things while her mind was engrossed with the curse of Cain 
impending upon her brother. He might have sought to re- 
new the matter under cover of giving her a closer sympathy 
and a more cordial support in her sorrows, but he saw in 
her demureness only the same sensitive pride that had shrunk 
from his advances ; and he knew that this pride had been 
wounded to the quick by the family disgrace. Moreover, to 
urge his claims as a lover at such a time would cover all his 
services to the family with a verdigris of self-interest ; and 
he thought that such advances would add to Barbara's dis- 
tress. In making them he would be taking an unfair ad- 
vantage of the obligations she might feel herself under to 
him, and the more ho thought of it the more he abhorred to 
put himself in such an attitude. So he daily strengthened 
his resolution to be nothing but Mrs. Grayson's next friend 
while he remained under her roof, and to postpone all the 
rest until this ordeal should be past. 

In many ways he was able to be helpful to the two 
troubled women. He stood between them and the prying 
curiosity of strangers, answering all questions about the 
family, about Tom, and about the case. He was their 
messenger on many occasions, and he went with them 
every Saturday or Sunday to Moscow. But at other times 
Barbara saw little of him except at the table, and he 
avoided all conspicuous attentions to her. Even Mely 



HIRAM AND BABBABA 233 

McCord, though often at the house, could find no subject 
for chaff in the relations of the two. When the matter was 
under discussion among the young gossips at the Timber 
Creek school-house, Mely declared she "did n' low they 
wuz anything in the talk about the master un Barbary, — 
he did n' pay Barbary no 'tention 't all, now 't ^e ^d got 
every chance." If Mason had been a person of less habitual 
self -repression he would not have been able to house his 
feelings so securely; but this man came of an austere 
stock; self-control was with him not merely habitual, it 
was hereditary. 

Hiram had besides a battle of his own to fight. The 
Monday morning after the killing of Lockwood, as he went 
to the school-house, he was met in the road by Lysander 
Butts, next neighbor to the Graysons — a square-built man 
with a cannon-ball head. Butts was from the hill country 
of New Jersey, a man of narrow prejudices and great 
obstinacy. 

" Looky here, Mr. Mason," he said, " d' you think now 
that a schoolmaster ought to take up for a rascal like Tom 
Grayson, that 's a gambler, and I don't know what, and 
that 's killed another fellow, like a sneak, in the dark!" 

" I have n^t taken up for Tom any more than to want 
him to have fair play," said Mason. " But I thought that 
the poor old lady needed somebody to be her friend, and so 
I went there, and am going to do what I can for her." 

" Well, I know the Graysons mighty well, first and last, 
this many a ye'r, and they 're all cut off of the same piece ; 
20* 



234 THE GRATSOXS 

and none of them is to be overly trusted, now you mind 
that.'' 

" You have a right to your opinion,'' said Hiram ; " but 
I am Mrs. Grayson's friend, and that is my lookout." 

" Mrs. Grayson's friend t " said Butts, with a sneer. " Mrs. 
Grayson, ainh t As if you could make me believe it was 
the mother you 're defending. It 's Barbary you 're after." 

Mason colored as though accused of a crime. Then, 
recovering himself, he said : '* It 's very impudent of you to 
be meddling, Mr. Butts. So long as I behave myself, it 's 
none of your business." And he went on toward the school. 

" None of my business, ainhf You 11 find out whose 
business it is mighty shortly," Butts called after Hiram. 

The quarrel between the Buttses and the Graysons dated 
back to their first settlement in Illinois. Butts had regu- 
larly cut wild hay on the low-l}dng meadow between the 
two farms. Fond of getting something for nothing, he 
gave out among his neighbors that this forty acres was his 
own, but he put off entering it at the Land Office. When 
Tom Grayson's father entered his farm he found this piece 
blank and paid for it. From that time Butts had been his 
enemy, for there was no adjunct to a farm in the timber so 
highly prized as a bit of meadow. When once near neigh- 
bors in the country have quarreled their proximity is usually 
a guarantee that they will never be reconciled ; — there are 
so many occasions of offense between people who must 
always be eating off the same plate. It was universally 
known that " the Buttses and the Graysons could n't hitch." 



HIRAM AND BARBARA 235 

Where two of their fields joined without on intervening 
road they had not been able even to build a line fence 
together; but each man laid up a rail fence on the very 
edge of his own land, and the salient angles of the two 
hostile fences stood so near together that a half -grown pig 
could not have passed between. This is what is called, in the 
phrase of the country, a " deviPs lane,'' because it is a monu- 
ment of bad neighborhood. 

When Mason reached the school-house that morning 
Angeline Butts had her books and those of her younger 
brother and two younger sisters gathered in a heap, and 
the rest of the scholars were standing about her, while 
she did her best to propagate the family antagonism to the 
master. The jealousy of Lysander Butts's family had been 
much inflamed by Barbara's swift success in study. Ange- 
line had never been able to get beyond the simple rules of 
arithmetic ; her feeble bark had quite gone ashore on the 
sandy reaches of long division. The Buttses were therefore 
not pleased to have Barbara arrive at the great goal of the 
Rule of Three, and even become the marvel of the neighbor- 
hood by passing into the mysterious realm of algebraic sym- 
bols. For Angeline's part she "could n't see no kind-uv good, 
noways you could fix it, in cipherin' with such saw-bucks." 
Figgers was good enough for common folks^ she said, and 
all this gimcrack work with x's and y's was only just a trick 
to ketch the master. For her part she would n' fool away 
time settin' her cap for sech as him, not if he was the only 
man in the world. 



236 ITHE OMATSOyS 

When Tom was arrested for murder, the Bnttses felt that 
their day had come. Folks would find out what sort of 
people the Graysons were now; and what would become 
of all Barbary's fine match with the master! HeyT But 
when, on the very day after the shooting, Angeline came 
home bursting with indignation, that the master 'd gone 
and took up his board and lodging at the Graysons', and 
had put John Buchanan into his place for a day and gone 
off down to the jail with the Graysons, their exasperation 
knew no bounds. Butts rose to the occasion, and resolved 
to take his children out of the school. No man that coun- 
tenanced murder could teach Butts's children. It is the 
inalienable right of the free-bom American citizen to 
relieve his indignation by taking his children from school, 
and by stopping his newspaper. 

When Mason entered the school-room after his encounter 
with the father he was not surprised to find the whole bat- 
talion of Butts infantry drawn up in martial array, while 
Angeline held forth to the assembled pupils on the subject 
of the master's guilt in countenancing Tom Grayson, and 
the general meanness of the whole Grayson "dick," living 
and dead. When the auditors saw Hiram come in they fell 
away to their seats ; but Angeline, pleased to show her defi- 
ance of the master, who could no longer punish her, stood 
bolt upright with her bonnet on until the school had been 
called to order. The younger Buttses sat down from habit- 
ual respect for authority, and the brother pulled off his 
hat; but Angeline jammed it on his head again, and pulled 



HIBAM AND BARBARA 237 

him to his feet. She might have left before the school 
began; but she preferred to have a row, if possible. So 
when the school had grown quiet, she boldly advanced to 
the space in front of the master's desk, with the younger 
and more timid Buttses slinking behind her. 

^^Mr. Mason, father 's goin' to take me out of school," 
she said. 

" So he told me.'' 

" He wants us to come right straight home this morning." 

"Well, you know the road, don't yout" said Hiram, 
smiling. " If he 's in a hurry for you, I should have thought 
you might have been there by this time." 

This reply set the school into an audible smile. Angeline 
grew red in the face, but the master was standing in silence 
waiting for her to get out, and the scholars were laughing 
at her. There was nothing more to be said, and nothing 
for it but to be gone or burst. In her irritation she seized 
her youngest sister, who was shamefacedly sneaking into 
Angeline's skirts, and gave her a sharp jerk, which only 
added a fresh impulse to the titter of the scholars, and 
Angeline and her followers were forced to scufSe out of 
the door in confusion. 

Lysander Butts was not a man to give over a struggle. 
Conflict was his recreation, and he thought he could " spite 
the master" not only by refusing payment for the tuition 
his children had already received, but by getting the Tim- 
ber Creek district to shut Mason out of their school-house. 
There were those in the district who resented Mason's 



238 THE GRAYSOXS 

friendship for the Graysons, but they were not ready to 
go so far as Butts proposed. And in asking Buchanan to 
teach school for him a single day Mason had unwittingly 
made friends against the time of trouble ; for the old school- 
master now took the young man's part, and brought over 
to his side the three Scotch families in the district, who 
always acted in unison, as a sort of clan. Butts was at a 
serious disadvantage in that he lived beyond the limits of 
the Timber Creek district. " What does he want to come 
a-maiddlin' wi'us fert" Buchanan demanded of the Timber 
Creekers. " Let 'im attaind to the beesness of his own 
deestrict, and not go to runnin' his wee crookit daivils' lanes 
doun here." Such arguments, with the help of Mason's 
good-nature, his popularity with the pupils, and his inflex- 
ible determination to keep his own gait, caused the opposi- 
tion to weaken and die out gradually without doing serious 
damage to the school. 

To this favorable issue the friendly influence of the 
Albaugh family, who were outside of the district on the 
other side from Butts, contributed something. With Rachel 
Albaugh Mason became better acquainted through her 
interest in Tom's fate. She sought a conversation with the 
master almost every day to gain information about the 
case. The placidity of her face was not ruffled by solici- 
tude, the glory of her eyes was not dimmed by tears. But 
interest in Tom's fate there surely was. It did not greatly 
matter to her whether Tom had committed the deed or not : 
in any case he was a bold and daring fellow who had lifted 



HIRAM AND BARBARA 239 

himself out of the commonplace, and who was proportion- 
ately interesting to Rachel's imagination. 

Bnt the people generally did not see things through the 
eyes of a romantic young woman. They were for the most 
part dead against Tom, and the adverse tide set more and 
more strongly against him when the long August days had 
worn themselves away and September with its bursts of 
storm had come in. If Tom had shot Lockwood in a street 
affray there would have been a disposition to condone the 
offense, seeing there was " a girl in the case," a circum- 
stance that goes for much in the minds of pioneer people ; 
for girls and horses are two things accounted well worth 
fighting for in a new country. Some philosophers explain 
this by saying that both the one and the other are means 
of ascent in the scale of civilization. But the fact is, that 
new-country people set much more store by their horses 
and their sweethearts than they do by civilization, for 
which, in the abstract, they care but little. They also 
esteem courage very highly. But to shoot a man in the 
dark as Lockwood had been shot was cowardly, and cow- 
ardice was in itself almost ground enough for hanging a 
man. 

This increased momentum in the popular feeling against 
Tom could not escape the knowledge of Mason, to whom 
people talked with some freedom, but he managed to con- 
ceal it from Barbara and Mrs. Grayson. His situation 
indeed was becoming more and more difficult. He foresaw 
that the maintenance of his present attitude toward Barbara 



240 THE QRAT80N8 

might soon become impossible. To be always near to her, 
and yet to keep himself so aloof, was more than even his 
nature would bear. Above all, to see her consumed by 
sorrow and to be afraid to speak the tenderest word of 
sympathy was torment. The very aspect of her suffering 
face set his nerves in a tremor ; it became difficult for him 
to say good-morning to her with composure. There is the 
uncontrollable in all of us ; and self-contained as Hiram 
was, he came upon the uncontrollable in himself at last. 

He had reached the closing days of his school term, 
though it yet lacked a fortnight of the September " court 
week'' at Moscow. It was his purpose to remain and see 
the Graysons through their trouble: what would become 
of his own trouble, when Tom's fate should have been set- 
tled one way or the other, he could not foretell. And he 
was, moreover, filled with the worst forebodings in regard 
to the issue of the trial. He came home from school a little 
earlier than usual on the last day but one of his school 
session, and fearing to trust himself too much in Barbara's 
presence, he had gone past the house directly to the barn, 
to do those night and morning things which are classed as 
chores or " choores," according to the accent of the region 
in which you chance to hear the word. On entering the 
bam he was surprised to find Barbara sitting on the '* draw- 
horse " or shaving-bench. She had fled to the threshing- 
floor, with the belief that she was seeking for eggs, but 
really to find relief in tears that she could not shed in the 
house without opening the great deep of her mother's sor- 



HIRAM AND BARBARA 241 

rows. She had remained longer than she intended, weeping 
heartUy, with no witness but the chattering swaUows in the 
rafters above, and old Blaze-face, who looked placidly at 
her from behind the bars of his hay-rack. 

The sight of Barbara alone in the dusky light of the 
threshing-floor awakened in Hiram an inexpressible longing 
to tell her of all there was in his heart ; the vision of Bar- 
bara in tears was too much for his resolution. He went 
forward and sat down by her ; he involuntarily put his right 
arm about her shoulders, and drew her to him in a gentle 
embrace ; he took her handkerchief in his left hand and 
wiped the tears from her cheeks and said softly : 

" Dear Barbara, now don't cry any more ; I 'm so sorry 
for you.'' 

Barbara sat still ; whether displeased or not Hiram could 
not tell, for she did not say a word. She neither accepted 
nor refused his embrace. Hiram felt a powerful impulse to 
say more, but he suddenly remembered that Barbara's grief 
had no relation to him, and it seemed hateful that he should 
intrude his own feelings and hopes upon her in her all- 
engrossing sorrow, and he feared to offend again a pride so 
sensitive as he knew hers to be. But he allowed himself 
once more to draw the silent Barbara toward him with a 
gentle pressure ; then, with a resolute effort at self-control, 
he climbed into the mow to pitch down some hay for old 
Blaze. This duty he performed as quickly as possible, 
blindly intent on returning to Barbara once more. But 
when he came down again Barbara had gone, and he sat 
21 



242 THE GRAYSONS 

down on the draw-horse where she had been, and remained 
there long, all alone but for the swallows flitting in and out 
through the openings between the lower ends of the rafters, 
and gossiping from one mud-built nest to another. In this 
time he asked himself questions about his conduct in the 
difficult days yet to come, and tried to reproach himself 
for the partial surrender he had made to his feelings; 
though now he had given so much expression to his affec- 
tion, he could not for the life of him repent of it. 

If he had known how much strength this little outbreak 
of sympathy on his part had given to Barbara, his con- 
science would have been quite at ease. Even Mrs. Grayson 
was sustained by the girl's accession of courage. In the 
darkest days that followed, Barbara liked to recall Hiram's 
voice soothing her, and begging her not to weep ; and with 
blushes she remembered the pressure of his gentle embrace 
about her shoulders. This memory was a check to the 
bitterness of her grief. But Hiram had lost confidence in 
himself. There were yet two more weeks to be passed, 
and unless he should desert Barbara in her trouble, he 
would have to spend these weeks in unceasing conflict. 

The next day was the last of the school-term, and accord- 
ing to immemorial nsage, the last Friday afternoon of a 
school-term was spent in a grand spelling-match, in which 
others than the regular pupils of the school were free to 
engage. It was while this orthographical scrimmage was 
going on that the county clerk, Magill, sprucely dressed, 
and ruddy-faced as ever, rode up to the school-house. He 



HIBAM AND BARBARA 243 

spent many of his days in riding about the county, palaver- 
ing the farmers and flattering their wives and daughters, 
and, by his genial Irish manners, making friends against 
the time of need. Who could tell whether it might not 
also be worth while to make friends with the grown-up and 
gro wing-up pupils of the Timber Creek school ; there would 
be elections after these boys came to vote. Besides, he 
remembered that Rachel Albaugh was one of Mason's post- 
graduate scholars, and it was not in such a connoisseur of 
flne women to miss an opportunity of seeing the finest in 
the county. So he wont in and sat for an hour on the hard 
bench with his back against the stone jamb of the great 
empty fire-place, and smilingly listened to the scholars 
wrestling with the supreme dif&culties of Webster's Ele- 
mentary; such, for example, as "incomprehensibility,'' and 
other "words of eight syllables accented on the sixth." By 
the time the spelling-match was over and the school was 
ready to be dismissed he had evolved a new plan relating to 
his own affairs. In making friends and electioneering no 
one could excel Magill; but for attending to the proper 
work of his office he had neither liking nor aptitude, and 
the youth he kept there, though good enough at building 
fires and collecting fees, was not competent to transcribe a 
document. The records were behind, and he needed some 
one to write them up. He was too pimdent to take into the 
office any man who in after years could use the experience 
that might be gained and the knowledge of his own dilatory 
habits that might be acquired there to supplant him. It 



244 THE GRAY SON 8 

occurred to him now that it would be a good stroke to 
engage Mason, who was not likely ever to be a resident of 
the county, and who could therefore never become a rival. 

While these thoughts were in Magill's mind, Hiram was 
indulging in a few words of that sort of sentiment to which 
schoolmasters are prone when the parting time comes. 
When the children were dismissed they formed themselves 
into two rows on the outside of the school-house door, 
according to an antique and, no doubt, Old- World custom 
still lingering in some rural places at that time. When the 
master made his exit the boys were on his right and the 
girls were on his left, — probably because of Eve's indiscre- 
tion in the garden of Eden. Between the two rows Hiram 
marched slowly, with a quizzical look on his face, as the 
boys, to the best of their knowledge and ability, bowed to 
him, and the girls, with an attempt at simultaneousness, 
dropped "curcheys'^ of respect. Magill stood in the door 
and smiled to see some of the boys bend themselves to stiff 
right angles on their middle hinges, while others grinned 
foolishly and bobbed their heads forward or sidewise, 
according to the string they chanced to pull. The per- 
formances of the other row were equally various; some of 
the girls bent their knees and recovered themselves all in 
one little jerk, while others dropped so low as to " make 
tubs^ of their dress-skirts. When these last honors had 
been paid, the scholars broke ranks and started for their 
homes. 

As Magill put one foot into the stirrup he said: '^ Mason, 



HIRAM AND BARBARA 245 

how would yeh like to come down to Moscow an' help me 
write up me books f I 'm a good dale behoind ; an' ef you 
like to come for a wake or two an' help me to ketch up, I 'U 
give yeh four bits a day an' yer board at the tavern." 

Hiram's finances were so straitened that this offer of 
fifty cents a day was very welcome to him. How could he 
serve the Graysons better than to be where he could see 
Tom every day, and look after his interest in any contin- 
gency that might arise t This and the recollection of his 
embarrassing situation in the Grayson household quickly 
decided him; and as the condition of Magill's office was 
distressing, he promised to come to town in time to begin 
by 9 o'clock the next morning. 

That evening he explained the matter to Barbara and 
her mother at the supper table ; and before bedtime he had 
arranged with Bob McCord to look after the " critters," as 
Bob called them. The next morning Hiram was off by 
daybreak. Bob McCord took him half-way with old 
Blaze, — for the rest, he "rode shank's mare," as the people 
say, — and by 9 o'clock he was trying to thread the laby- 
rinth of confusion in Magill's office. 

To Barbara it seemed the greatest good fortune to have 
Mason near to Tom, but the table was intolerably lonely 
when only two sorrow-smitten women sat down together. 



21* 




XXII 

THE FIHST DAY or COUBT 

XHE eventfal morning at the opening of the 

T~^ " ^^ term" o( the court of Moscow came at 
^^ leugth. Mrs. Grayson ^ain pot her hoase 
1 into tlie care of her neighbor Mely MeCord, 
and she arranged that Bob MeCord shoold stay at home so 
as to feed the cattle that night and the next morning. It 
was thought that Tom's trial would take place on tlie second 
day. Mrs. Grayson and Barbara drove into Moscow early 
on the first day of court, that they might give Tom all the 
sympathy and assistance possible. 

On that very first forenoon the grand jury heard such 
fragments of evidence as the public prosecutor thought 
necessary to bring before them, and fonnd an indictment 
against Thomas Grayson, Junior, for murder in the first 
degree. In the prevailing state of public opinion a true 
bill would almost have been found if no evidence had been 
before them. Delay in such cases was not to be thought 
of in that time of sammary justice ; dilatory postponements 



THE FIRST DAT OF COURT 247 

were certainly not to be expected in a court presided over, 
as this one was, by Judge Watkins. He was a man ap- 
proaching sixty years of age, with a sallow, withered face; 
a victim to hot biscuit and dyspepsia ; arbitrary and petu- 
lant, but with deep-^t, intelligent black eyes. Though his 
temper was infirm, his voice crabbed, and his administra- 
tion of justice austere and unrelenting, he was eminently 
just, and full of the honorable if somewhat irascible 
pride of a Virginian with a superstitious reverence for his 
" family.'^ Judge Watkins came of an ancestry who were 
famous only for courageously holding up their heads and 
doing nothing that they considered unworthy of gentlemen. 
Their greatest pride was that they had always been proud. 
The judge's coat hung loosely on his frame, and his trou- 
sers were generally drawn up in wrinkles so as to show the 
half of his boot-legs. His garments were, moreover, well 
worn and rather coarse; like his planter ancestors, he never 
fancied that dress could add anything to the dignity of a 
gentleman. The substantial distinction of a gentleman, in 
his estimation, consisted in being of a " good family," and 
in preferring to lose one's life rather than to lie, and to take 
another man's life rather than to suffer the reproach of 
falsehood or cowardice. It was characteristic of a Virgin- 
ian of this type to have something like a detestation for 
clothes, except in so far as they served for decency and 
warmth; all the great difference which separated a re- 
spected gentleman from a despised fop lay in this fierce 
contempt for appearances. Judge Watkins left fine coats 



248 THE GRAY80N8 

and gold watches for those who needed such decorations; 
he clothed himself in homespun and family pride. 

When the indictment was read^ the jadge, looking from 
under his overhanging, grizzled eyebrows, said, "When can 
we try this case t " The counsel on both sides knew that 
he intended to dispatch this disagreeable business promptly. 
As he put the question. Judge Watkins looked first at 
Allen, the prosecuting attorney, and then at Lincoln. 

" We are ready, your Honor," said the prosecuting attor- 
ney, a little man with a freckled face and a fidgety desire 
to score a point on every occasion. *' I hope there '11 be no 
delay, your Honor. The defense knew six weeks ago that 
a true bill would be found. They 've had time enough to 
prepare, and I hope we shall be able to go on." 

The judge listened impatiently to this, with the air of a 
man who has heard so much clap-trap that it has become 
nauseous to him. Indeed, before Allen had completed his 
little speech Judge Watkins had turned quite away from 
him and fastened his deep-set eyes on young Lincoln, who 
rose to his feet without succeeding in getting himself quite 
straight, — this was always a matter of time with him, — 
and said in a grave, half -despondent way: 

" Your Honor, we are ready." 

" 1 11 set the case for to-morrow, then," said the judge, 
and added in a sharper key, " Sheriflf, command silence ! " 
This last injunction was prompted by an incontinent rustle 
of interest in the court-room when the time for the murder 
trial was fixed for the next day. The judge's high-strung. 



TBE FIB8T DAY OF COURT 249 

irascible nerves, and Mb sense of the sacred dignity of his 
court, made him take ofFense at the slightest symptom of 
popular feeling. 

The sheriff, who sat at the judge's left a little lower than 
the judge, now stood up and rapped with a mallet on the 
plank desk in front of him, and cried lustily, "Si — lence 
in court ! " 

And all was still again. 

The judge's dignity woald not admit of his addressing 
the commonalty, who, since they were neither members of 
the bar, court officers, witnesses, nor criminals, were beyond 
official recognition, but he said to the sheriff in a severe 
tone: 

" Sheriff, you will arrest any person who makes any kind 
of disturbance in the court." 

Then the business of the court went on. One after an- 
other of the spectators, whose interest was centered in the 
next day's session, rose and tip-toed softly out of the room. 
They did not all go at once, nor did any one of them go 
noisily. The judge had been known to fine a man for 
treading heavily, and those who wore squeaking boots were 
in misery until they were quite clear of the door. 




xxin 

BBOAD BUN IN AKMS 

REE popular imagination had made Tom into 
I something monstrous. Visitors to the village 
yfeut to the jail window to look at him, as one 
[light go to look at a wild beast. Confloe- 
meut, solicitude, and uncertainty had worn upon him. He 
shrank nervously into the darker comers of the jail to avoid 
observatioD. His mind was a very shuttlecock between the 
battledores of hope and fear. He knew no more than the 
public of the purposes or expectations of his lawyer. All 
that Lincoln would say to Tom or hia friends was that the 
case was a difficult one, and that it was better to leave the 
line of defense wholly to himself. But in proportion as 
Tom's counsel was uncommunicative about bis plans rumor 
was outspoken and confident, though not always consistent 
in its account of them. It was reported that Tom was to 
plead guilty to manslaughter; that Lincoln would try to 
clear him on the ground of jiistiflable homicide in self- 
defense ; and that the lawyer had found a man willing to 
swear that he was in company with Tom on another part 



BROAD BUN nr ABMS 251 

of the ground at the very time of the shooting. In any case, 
it was decided that Lincoln would move for a change of 
venue, for it was well understood that in Moscow the ac- 
cused did not stand '* a ghost of a chance." 

As the time of the court session drew on, a new and 
more exciting report had got abroad. It was everywhere 
said that Dave Sovine had been bought off, and that he was 
to get his money and leave the country in time to avoid 
testifying. How the story was set a-going, or who was 
responsible for it, no one could tell. Dave Sovine's con- 
ferences with Bob McCord may have raised surmises, for as 
the time of the trial approached, Dave grew more and more 
solicitous to get the hundred dollars and be off. He even 
hinted to Bob that he might refuse to accept it, if it did not 
come soon. Bob McCord had his own notions about the 
report. He thought that either Sovine had incontinently 
let the matter out, which was hardly probable, or that Abe 
Lincoln for some reason wanted such a belief to be spread 
abroad. Secretive and tricky as Bob was, there was a finesse 
about Lincoln's plans which he could not penetrate, and 
which led him more than once to remark that Abe was 
"powerful deep for a young feller.'' Whether the rumor 
was launched for a purpose or not, it had had the effect 
of waking up Allen, the public prosecutor, who put a 
watch on Sovintfs movements, and gave his chief witness 
to understand that any attempt of his to leave the coun- 
try, by night or day, would bring about his immediate 
arrest. 



252 THE GBATSONS 

The story that Sovine had been bought off produced 
another result which could not have been desired by either 
of the lawyers : it fanned to a blaze the slumbering embers 
of Broad Bun. Jake Hogan's abortive expedition to Perrys- 
burg had left resentment rankling in his manly bosom. He 
had reluctantly given over the attempt to redeem himself 
by making a raid on Moscow the Sunday night f ollowing, 
when Deputy Sheriflf Markham had pretended to look up a 
hypothetical wall-eyed,red- whiskered man, who was believed 
to have had some reason for killing George Lockwood. It 
was, indeed, only by degrees that Broad Run came to under- 
stand that its dignity had been again trifled with. The first 
result of its indignation was that the Broad Bun clan, 
attributing to Sheriff Plunkett all the humiliation put upon 
it, had unanimously resolved to compass his defeat at the 
next election. Plunkett, having heard of this, promptly took 
measures to avert the defection of his good friends on the 
Bun. Markham, as the principal author of the difficulty, 
was dismissed from his place of deputy on some trifling 
pretext. It did not cost Sheriff Plunkett serious pain to 
let him go ; Markham was becoming too conspicuous a flg- 
ure. It is the way of shrewd small men to cut down in 
time an apprentice who is likely to overtop the master. 
Then Plunkett told his brother-in-law to go out to Broad 
Bun and explain things. Greater diplomatists than he have 
prepared to make use of irresponsible ambassadors when 
they had that to say which it might be necessary to repudi- 
ate. The brother-in-law was one of those men who like to 



BROAD B UN IN ABMS 253 

take a hand in local politics, not for the sake of holding 
office themselves, but for the pleasure of intrigue for its 
own sake. He first sought Jake Hogan at his cabin, and sat 
and whittled with him on the wood-pile in the most friendly 
way, laughing at Jake's lank jokes, fiattering his enormous 
self-love, and by every means in his power seeking to 
appease Hogan's wrath against the sheriff. The sheriff 
had n't anything to do with running Tom off after the 
inquest, said the envoy, — Markham had done that. It was 
Markham who had peddled around the story of the man 
with red whiskers. Markham had got too big-feeling for 
his place. The sheriff saw that Markham was against the 
Broad Run boys, and so he put him out — dropped him like 
a hot potato, you know. 

*Must consider," the brofcher-in-law urged, "how much 
Plunkett 's done for the boys. He 's refused tee-totally to 
let Tom go to Perrysburg. Plunkett ain't going to be 
dictated to by rich men like ole Tom Grayson. He knows 
who elected him. And he don't feel obliged to protect a 
murderer after the coroner's jury says he 's guilty." 

" They 's been talk of his shootin' if any reg'laters come 
around," said Jake. 

" Him shoot t " answered the brother-in-law. " He 's done 
everything he could not to put out the boys, and what 'u'd 
'e shoot for? He ain^t anxious to have the job of hangin' 
Tom Grayson. He 's heard tell of sheriffs, 'fore now, that 's 
felt themselves ha'nted as long's they lived, because they'd 
hanged a man. He ain't goin' to fight for the privilege of 
22 



254 THE GRAYSONS 

hangin' Tom, and he ain't the kind to do anythitf brash, 
and he ain't ag'inst good citizens like the boys on the Bun 
— depend on that Of course,'' — here the brother-in-law 
picked up a new splinter and whittled it cautiously as he 
spoke, — "of course you know't the sheriff's give bonds. 
He 's got to make a show of defending his prisoner. He 's 
took 'n oath, you see, 'n' people expect him to resist But 
if a lot of men comes, what can one man do t S'posin' they 
was to tie his hands, and then s'pose they was to say if he 
moved they 'd shoot What could he do !" 

The envoy stopped whittling and looked at Jake, giving 
the slightest possible wink with one eye. Jake nodded his 
head with the air of a man who is confident that he is not 
such a fool as to be unable to take a hint enforced by half 
a wink. 

" What does 'n oath amount to with a pistol at your 
headt" the brother-in-law inquired; " an' what's the use of 
bonds if your hands are tied f You can talk strong ; that 
don't hurt anybody." 

Jake nodded again, and said, " In course." 

" If you was to hear aboat the sheriff's sayin' he 'd ruther 
die than give up his prisoner, you can just remember that he 
's got to talk that way ; he 's under bonds, and he 's swore 
in, and the people expect him to talk about doin' his dooty. 
But you 're too old a hand to set much store by talk t " 

"Well, I 'low I am," said Hogan, greatly pleased that his 
experience and astuteness were at length coming in for due 
recognition. 



BROAD B UN IN ABM8 255 

Then when Jake was pretty well molMed, the brother- 
in-law adjourned himself and Jake to the grocery, where he 
treated the crowd, and in much more vague and non-com- 
mittal terms let all the citizens that resorted thither under- 
stand that Sheriff Plunkett was their friend, and that Pete 
Markham was the friend of the rich men and the lawyers. 
But he took pains to leave the impression that Tom would 
certainly meet his deserts at the hands of the court, for the 
sheriff desired to avoid the embarrassment of a mob if he 
could. 

The sweetness of Jake Hogan's spirit had been curdled 
by his disappointment and reverses, but these overtures 
from the sheriff to him as a high-contracting power were 
very flattering and assuring. When, a little later, the 
startling intelligence reached that center of social and 
intellectual activity, the Broad Run grocery, that Dave 
Sovine had been bought off, Broad Bun was aroused, and 
Jake Hogan left off sulking in his tent and resumed his 
activity in public affairs. 

'' Did n't I tell you," he asked, leaning his back against 
the counter and supporting himself on his two elbows thrust 
behind him, while one of his legs, ending in a stogy boot, 
was braced out in front of him, "you can't hang the 
nephew V a rich man in such a dodrotted country as this 
yer Eelenoys t Dave Sovine 's bought off, they say, by an 
ornery young lawyer un that air Bob McCord." Jake was 
too prudent to apply any degrading adjectives to a man of 
Bob's size and renown. " Dave 11 light out the day afore 



250 THE GRATSONS 

the trial with rocks in his pockets, un that air young cow- 
ard ^11 git clean off. Where 's yer spank, I 'd like to knowf 
'F you 're go'n' to be homswoggled by lawyers like that air 
long-legged Abe Lincoln, un skin-flints like ole Seven-per- 
cent Tom Grayson, Vy, you kin, that 's alL" 

Jake, with his head thrown forward, looked sternly 
around on the group about him, and they seemed to feel 
the reproach of his superior aggressiveness. Bijy Grimes 
was rendered so uneasy by Jake's regard that he shut his 
mouth ; and then, not knowing what better to do, he ven- 
tured to ask humbly, "What kin we do about it, Jaket" 
letting his mouth drop open again in token that he waited 
for a reply. 

** Do t " said Jake contemptuously. " Wy, chain-lightnin', 
Bijy, what a thing, now, to ax ! Show me two dozen, ur 
even one dozen, men that '11 stan' at my back tell the blood 
runs, un I '11 show 'em 't folks can't take a change of veuoo 
out-uh the k-younty that knows all about the rascality into 
one that don't. I '11 show 'em how to buy off witnesses, un 
I '11 1'am these yer dodrotted lawyers un rich men how to 
fool weth the very bone un sinoo uv the land." 

Notwithstanding the natural love of these men for a little 
excitement, they had been rendered somewhat unresponsive 
by Jake's failures. The most of them thought it best to go 
to town on the day of the trial and see how it would come 
out. But at 6 o'clock in the evening of the first day of 
court. Lew Baker, a farmer from the river valley beyond 
the Bun, rode past the door of the grocery on his way home, 



BBOAD BUN IN ABMS 257 

and said a collective "Howdy'' to the three or four who 
stood outside. Bijy Grimes, who was one of them, came 
out toward the middle of the road heading off the traveler. 

" Hello, Lew ! Any uooze about the trial t " he said, drop- 
ping his lower jaw from between his fat infantile cheeks 
and waiting for a reply, while the rest of the group moved 
up to hearing distance. 

" Well, yes," said Baker, pulling up his horse and swing- 
ing himself round in the saddle so as to bring the most of 
his weight on the right stirrup, while he rested his left 
elbow on his left knee and his right hand on the horse's 
mane. "I heem tell, jest as I come away, that Dave what- 
ye-may-call-'im, the witness, had sloped, liker'n not. He 
hain't been seed aroun' for a right smart while, un they say 
he 's gone off to New JJrleans ur the Injun country. Mos- 
cow 's stirred up about it." 

" Tu-lah ! " said Bijy. " They low he '11 be got off, don't 
they?" 

" They 're shore sumpin 's fixed, fer the young feller's 
lawyer hain't soopeenied a derned witness." 

" Tu-lah ! " said Bijy. " Is that a f ack t " 

" Shore *s shootin', they say. He 's to be got off some- 
how, I s'pose." 

" Tu-laws-a-massy ! " broke out Bijy; and turning to his 
fellow-loafers he said, " That '11 rile Jake purty consid'able, 
now won't itt" 

It did stir up Jake when he heard of it. He promptly set 
to work to form a company to descend at once on Moscow 
22* 



258 THE GBAT80XS 

and take the case out of the hands of the dodrotted lawyers. 
He could not at so late an hour get together more than 
twenty or twenty-five men from Broad Bun and the regions 
within warning distance. Some of these joined him only 
because they could not endure to have anything very excit- 
ing take place in their absence : it would entail the neces- 
sity of their hearing for the rest of their lives the account 
given of the affair by the participators, who would always 
value themselves on it. Some of the larger boys, whose aid 
had been rejected in the previous excursion because they 
were not accounted mature enough for such public respon- 
sibilities, were now admitted: the company would be small, 
and a boy is better than nobody in a pinch. S'manthjr's 
oldest son, a tow-headed fellow of fifteen, was one of these, 
and he was sent over the hill to warn Zeke Tucker, who 
was still at Britton's, a mile away from the borders of what 
was distinctively called " the Run Neighborhood.'' 

The September twilight was already fading when the lad 
presented himself in front of Zeke Tucker, who sat perched 
on top of a rail fence for rest and observation after his 
day's work. Mrs. Britton was making the house over- 
warm, and Zeke preferred the fresh air. 

" I say, Zeke," said the breathless boy, " it 's to come oflf 
to-night, un I 'm a-goin', by hokey I " 

" What 's to come oflf to-night t " 

" Wy, the hangin' — the hangin' of that young chap Tom 
down 't Moscow; un I 'm goin' to take grandad's ole flint- 
lock." 



BROAD BUN IN ABM8 



259 



" Your grandad's ole flint-lock I You might as well take 
a stick," said Zeke. 

*' Oh I it '11 go off ef you tech it off weth a coal of fire, but 
I don't low I kin find any coal to tech it off weth down 
thar," and S'manthy's son scratched his head thoughtfully. 
" But, anyways, it 11 look like a gun in the night." 

" Yes, un you 11 look like a man, I s'pose. But what 
time 's Jake goin' t " 

" Twix^ ten un leven. Donchoo be late." 

'' You tell Jake not to go, noways, wethout me," said Zeke, 
hoping by this to delay Jake's start. 




XXIV 

FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED 

[EEE sat restless on the fence nntil S'manthy's 
boy, exultant that his manhood was to be 
recognized by his admission to the band, had 
gone out of sight in the direction of the gro- 
cery. Then Zeke sprang from the fence and started, as fast 
as legs could carry, along an old Indian trail, hoping by 
this disused and in some places obstructed short cut across 
the prairie to save a mile of the eight-miles' journey to Bob 
McCord's cabin. Bob was already abed when Zeke, badly 
blown by his rapid walking, knocked at the door. 

"Who's there!'' called Bob, emerging from his first 
heavy sleep. 

"It's me — Zeke Tucker! Git up, quick. Bob! Jake 
Hogan 's off at ten 'r 'leven, un it 's nigh onto that a'ready." 
And Zeke impatiently rattled the door of the cabin, the 
latch-string of which had been drawn in to lock it. 

Bob came down on the floor with a thump, and his few 
clothes were soon pulled on ; then he came out and stood 
in the fresh air, on the " butt-cut " of a tulip-tree, or "flower- 

200 



FIRST COME, FIBST SERVED 261 

ing poplar," which, to compensate for the descent of the 
hill-side, had been laid against the bottom log of his cabin 
for a front-door step. Zeke explained to him how urgent 
the case was. 

" Baub ! don't you go 'n' go off down to Moscow to-night,'' 
called Mrs. McCord. ** They hain't no airthly use in your 
bother in' yourself so much about other folkses business. 
You 'd orter stay 'n' look arter your own wife un childem." It 
was Mrs. McCord's invariable habit to object, in her plaint- 
ive and impotent fashion, to everything her husband pro- 
posed to do. She had not the slightest expectation that he 
would remain at home in consequence of anything she 
might say, nor did she care that he should ; but she had a 
vocation to hold in check his thriftless proi)ensities. This 
she tried to do by protests uttered indiscriminately against 
all his outgoings and his incomings, his downsittings and 
his uprisings. 

" We ain't got no hoss," said Bob, replying to Zeke, and 
paying no heed to his wife. " Mrs. Grayson un BarVry 've 
gone un gone to town weth ole Blaze, so 's to be weth Tom 
airly in the momin'. What on yerth to do I don't noways 
see." Bob was standing with his fists in his pockets, look- 
ing off anxiously toward the horizon. 

" Can't you git Butts's t " said Zeke. 

"Thunder! No! Buttses un Graysons don't hitch. 
Butts don't speak to none uv 'em, un he hates Tom the 
wust, fer throwin' rocks at his geese when they got into 
the medder, un dauggin' his haugs out-uh the com. They 'd 



262 THE QRAT80N8 

a leetle rather Tom 'd be lynched on not By blazes ! I 've 
got to git one of Butts's hosses right straight off. Buchan- 
an's hoss is lame, un they hain't nary nuther one to be 
got this side uv Albaugh's, and that 's too fur away. You 
go down to the branch un wait f er me, un I 'U git Butts's 
little wagon. I 'low they 'U be hoppin' mad 'f they flne out 
what I got it fer, but I 've got to git it, 'f I have to steal it. 
They hain't no two ways about it." 

" I don't think you 'd ortuh go off that a- way, Baub," 
began Mrs. McCord again. '' Un me more 'n half sick. 
I 've been f eelin' kind-uh slarruppy like fer two 'r three 
days. Un them air taters is to be dug, un Mely 's gone 
away. You 'n' Zeke Tucker '11 make a purty fist uv it 
a-lickin' all Broad Bun, now, wonch yeh t Wha' choo got 
to do weth Jake — " 

But Bob did not hear the rest of it, nor was it ever 
uttered indeed. For Mrs McCord, when she found that 
her husband had gone, did not think it worth while to finish 
her lamentations; she only drew a sigh of complacent 
long-suffering and submission to fate, and went to sleep. 

Hardened sinner that he was. Big Bob felt a little twinge 
of shame as he made his way rapidly to Butts's house. His 
wife's set speech about being more than half sick, often as 
he had heard it, and little as he had ever heeded it, had now 
made a sufficient lodgment in his consciousness to suggest 
a way out of his difficulty ; but it was a way which a loafer 
of the superior sort, such as Bob, might feel ashamed to 
take, knowing that such a scheme as he was concocting 



FIJ&ST COME, FIRST SERVED 263 

would be an outrage on all the sacred principles of good 
neighborhood — an outrage only to be justified by military 
necessity. All the way to Butts's, hurried as he was, his 
hands were ramming his trousers-pockets, after his fashion 
of groping there for a solution of his difttculties. It was 
the carrying over into other affairs the habitual research 
which the hunter makes for bullets, caps, patching, or jack- 
knife to meet the exigencies of the forest. 

Arrived at the unpainted, new frame-house, which, being 
two feet longer and one foot broader than any other in the 
neighborhood, was the particular pride of the Butts family, 
he noted that all the lights were out, and after hesitating 
whether to capture the horse by stealth or by strategy, he 
went to the front door and rapped. The head of the pro- 
prietor came out of one of the lower windows with an 
abrupt " Who 's there t " spoken with that irritation a weary 
man is prone to express when awakened from his first nap 
to attend to some one else's wants. 

'' I say, Mr. Butts," said Bob, pushing his hands harder 
against the bottoms of his pockets, '^ kin I git the loan uv 
one uv your bosses un your leetle wagon to fetch the doc- 
tort My ole woman's purty bad; been sick ever senee the 
sun was 'n 'our high, un we can't git nothin' to do no good." 

"What seems to be the matter!" said Butts, wishing to 
postpone an unpleasant decision. 

Bob hesitated a moment : lying is a dangerous business 
unless it is carried on with circumspection. " Blamed 'f I 
know jest what it is. I suspicion it 's the e^y^pepsy." 



264 THE GBATSOIfS 

The name of dyspepsia was new to the country at that 
day, though the complaint was ancient enough, no doubt. 
Just what e?y«pepsy might be Bob did not know, but he hit 
on it as the vaguest term he could recall and one that had 
a threatening sound. It would not have served his purpose 
to have rei)eated Mrs. McCord's diagnosis of her own case, 
that she was " f eelin' kind-uh slarruppy like.'' " Whatever 
't is, she don't think she kin git through till mornin' 'thout 
I git a doctor." 

" Well, I doan know. The sorrel 's lame ; un I don't 
like to let the bay colt go noways, he 's sech a sperrited 
critter." 

Butts drew his head in at this point to consult with Mrs. 
Butts as to how he could evade lending the cherished bay 
colt. 

" Looky h-yer, Mr. McCord," presently called Mrs. Butts, 
keeping her nightcapped head well out of sight as she 
spoke, "you don't want no doctor nohow." Mrs. Butts 
had come by virtue of superior credulity to hold the posi- 
tion of neighborhood doctress, and she was not friendly to 
regular physicians. " You jest take along with you a bottle 
of my new medicine, 't I call the * Scatter Misery.' It 's 
made out-uh roots an' yarbs, an' it 's the best thing I know 
fer mos' every kind of complaint. It 's good insides an' 
outsides. You rub the Scatter Misery onto the outsides un 
give her a swaller now un then insides. It 'U fetch 'er 
'roun' in an hour or two." 

Bob felt himself fairly entangled in his own intrigue, but 



FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED 265 

he gave his great fists another push into his troosers- 
pockets and said: 

" I 'm much obleeged, Mrs. Butts, but my ole woman tole 
me ez I wuz n't to come back 'thout a doctor ; un ef you 
hain't got no critter you kin len' me, I mus' be a-gittin' 
'long down to Albaugh's mighty quick. That 's a powerful 
ways off, though. I wish I 'd gone there straight un not 
come over h-yer." 

This last was uttered in a tone of plaintive disappoint- 
ment as Bob turned away, walking slowly and giving the 
family council time to change its mind. 

" Aw, well. Bob," called Butts, after a conference with 
his wife, " I don't like to disobleege a neighbor. You kin 
have the bay colt ; but you must drive slow, Bob. He 's a 
young thing un the fldgetiest critter." 

Bob would drive slow. He professed that he never drove 
faster 'n a slow trot, "nohows you can fix it." And he 
helped Butts to hitch up with, no sense of exultation, but 
rather with a sneaking feeling of shame. 

However, nothing troubled Bob long or deeply, and when 
he had passed the branch and taken in Zeke Tucker, and 
got out of the woods to the smooth prairie road beyond, he 
forgot his scruples and tried to find out just how much 
speed Butts's bay colt might have in him. Nor did he 
slacken pace even when he got into the village streets ; but 
remembering how near it was to Jake's time, he held the 
horse swiftly on till he rea(»hed an alley-way behind some 
village stores. Telling Tucker to tie the horse, he got over 
23 



266 THE QBAT80N8 

the fence and laid hold of a rusty crowbar that he had long 
kept his mind fixed on. Putting this on his shoulder, he 
was soon at the jail. 

" Tom ! ^ he called, in a smothered voice, at the grated 
window on the east side. But all within was as silent as it 
was dark. For a moment Bob stood perplexed. Then he 
went to the grating at the back of the jail — the window 
that opened into the passage-way at the end opposite to the 
front door. 

"Tom, where air yout'' he called, putting his hands up 
on each side of his mouth, that his words might not be 
heard in the street. 

" In the dungeon." Tom's voice sounded remote. 

Bob spent no time in deliberating, but thrust the crow- 
bar between the cross-bars of the iron grating. His first 
diflBculty was similar to that of Archimedes, he could not 
get a fulcrum ; or, as he expressed it less elegantly to Zeke, 
"he could n't git no purchase onto the daudblasted ole 
thing.'' But by persistently ramming the point of the 
crowbar against the stone-work at the side of the window 
he succeeded at length in picking out a little mortar and 
bracing the tip of the crowbar against a projecting stone. 
He had great confidence in his own physical strength, but 
the grating at first was too much for him ; the wrought- 
iron cross-bar of the window bent under the strain he put 
upon it, but it would not loosen its hold on the masonry. 
At this rate it would take more time than he could hope to 
have to push the bars apart enough to admit even ^eke's 



FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED 267 

thin frame, and he could not hope to bend them far enough 
to let his own great body through. He therefore changed 
his mode of attack. Withdrawing his crowbar from the 
grating, he felt for a seam in the stones at the base of the 
window and then drove the point of the bar into this over 
and over again, aiming as well as he could in the dark and 
taking the risk of attracting the attention of some wakeful 
villager by the sound of his ringing blows. At length, by 
drilling and prying, he had loosened the large stone which 
was in some sort the key to the difficulty. This accom- 
plished, he made haste to insert the bar again into the 
grating, bracing its point as before in the seam he had 
already opened in the stone- work at the side of the window. 
Then, with his feet against the wall of the jail, he crouched 
his great frame and put forth the whole of his forces, 
thrusting his mighty strength against the crowbar, as blind 
Samson in his agony tugged at the pillars of the Philistine 
temple. In some colossal work of Michael Angelo's I have 
seen a tremendous figure so contorted, writhing in supreme 
effort. The mortar broke, some of the stones gave way at 
length, and one bar of the grating was wrenched reluctant 
from its anchorage in the wall below. Then, letting the 
crowbar fall, Bob seized the rod now loosened at one end 
and tore it quite out, and then threw it from him in a kind 
of fury. The process had to be repeated with each separate 
bar in the grating, though the breaking up of the wall 
about the window made each rod come more easily than the 
preceding one. When all had been removed he squeezed 



208 THE GRAT80N8 

through the window-opening, feet first, and felt his way 
down the passage to the door of the dungeon, where Tom 
was anxiously waiting for his deliverer. Bob made what a 
surgeon would call a " digital examination " of the dungeon 
door, and found its strength to be such that to break it 
down would require the rest of the night, if, indeed, there 
was any hope of achieving it at all in a dark hallway, too 
narrow to admit of a free use of the crowbar. 

" Dem the luck ! ^ said Bob, pausing a moment. 

" What 's the matter, Bob t " asked Tom anxiously. 

But Bob did not seem to hear the question. *' We must 
git a cole-chisel," was all he said ; and he hastened to creep 
back out of the brokeu-up window. 

" Whach yeh go'n' to do t " asked the waiting Zeke, as 
Bob emerged. 

But Bob only said, " Come on, quick I " and started oflf in 
a swinging trot toward the village blacksmith shop, a low, 
longish, wooden building, barely visible in the darkness. 
He pulled at the door, but it was firmly closed with a pad- 
lock. Then he felt his way along the side of the building 
to a window-sash, which was easily taken out of its place. 

" Heap uh use uh lockin' the door,'' he muttered, as he 
climbed in. " Blow up the belluses there un see ef you kin 
make a light" 

Zeke, who had followed his leader, pumped away on the 
bellows in vain, for the fire in the forge had quite gone out, 
though the ashes were hot to Zeke's touch. Both of the 
men set to work to find a blacksmith's cold-chisel, feeling 



FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED 269 

and fumbling all over the disorderly shop. As it often 
took the smith half an hour to find this particular tool, it 
would have been a marvel for two strangers to find it at 
all in the darkness. 

" We '11 have to gin up the conundrum,'' said Bob, with 
his hands again in his pockets. '^ Did n' you say as you 
lowed the sher'f was expectin' Jake 1^ 

"Yes," answered Zeke. "Jake's got a kind-uv a secret 
urrangement weth Plunkett's brother-in-law. They hain't 
to be shootiu'-work on nary side, but on'y jist a-plenty uv 
thunderin' loud talk f er the looks uv the thing. Jake 's to 
make the demdest kind uv a row, un the sher'f's to talk 
about dyin' 'n 'is tracks un all that, you know. That 's 
some weeks ago 't the sher'f's brother-in-law fixed all that 
up, un Jake, he tole us they would n' be no danger." 

" Turn your coat wrong sides out," said Bob, turning his 
own. " Now tie your han'kercher acrost yer face, so 's to 
kiver all below yer eyes." 

When these directions had been carried out Bob climbed 
out of the window, and stopped to put his hands into his 
pockets again and consider. 

" Whach yeh go'n' to do t" asked Zeke. 

But Bob only asked, "What 'U we do fer pistols!" and 
with that set himself to feeling all about the ground in 
front of the smith's shop, picking up and rejecting now a 
bit of a dead bough from the great sycamore under the 
friendly shade of which the smith did all his horse-shoeing, 
now a bit of a board, and again a segment of a broken 
23* 



270 THE ORAYSOXS 

wagon-tire, and then a section of a felloe. At last Bob 
came upon the broken wheel of a farmer's wagon, leaning 
against the side of the shop in waiting for repairs to its 
wood-work and a new tire. Prom this he wrenched two 
spokes and gave one of them to Zeke. 

" There 's your pistol, Zeke. Put it jam up agin Plunk- 
ett's head un tell him to hole still ur die. We 've got to 
play Jake Hogan onto 'im un git the keys. Th' ain't nary 
nuther way.'' 

As Bob passed the jail in going toward the sheriff's house 
he took along the crowbar. Plunkett lived in a two-story 
frame dwelling on the eastern margin of the village. Bob 
sent Zeke to run around it and pound on the back door and 
bang on every window with his wagon-spoke and his fists, 
while Bob himself dealt rousing blows on the front door 
with his crowbar. When Zeke had made the circuit of the 
house, Bob put the crowbar under the door. 

" We must n't wait f er him to open, he 11 see how few we 
air," he whispered. " Prize away on this yer." Then, while 
Zeke lifted up on the bar, Bob hurled his whole bull weight 
against the door. The staple of the lock held fast, but the 
interior facing of the door-jamb was torn from its fasten- 
ings and fell with a crash on the floor, letting the door 
swing open. Not to lose the advantage of surprise. Bob 
and Zeke pushed up the stairway, guided by the noise made 
by some one moving about. By the time they reached 
Plunkett's sleeping-room the latter had struck a light with 
steel and flint, and had just lighted a tallow-candle, which 



FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED 271 

was beginning to shed a feeble glimmer on the bed, the 
rag-carpeted floor, the shuck-bottom chairs, and the half- 
dressed man, when Bob, coming up quickly behind him, 
blew the light out, and seizing Plunkett with the grip of a 
bear crowded him down to the floor with a smothered oath. 

"Don't kill me, boys,'' said the sheriff in a hoarse 
whisper; for this rough usage frightened him a little, 
notwithstanding his good understanding with the mob. 

" Say one word un you 're a dead man," said Zeke Tucker, 
pressing the cold muzzle of his wagon-spoke close to the 
sheriff's head. These melodramatic words were, I am glad 
to say, a mere plagiarism. In the absence of anything 
better, Zeke repeated the speech of a highwayman in an 
old-fashioned novel he had heard Mrs. Britton read on 
Sunday afternoons. Then he added on his own account : 
** We won't have no tricks ; d' yeh h'yer t " 

" They 's mor' 'n forty uv us," said Bob, " un we want 
them air keys right straight." 

" If I had half a chance I 'd ruther die than give 'em up,'' 
— this was all that Plunkett could remember of the defiant 
speech he was to have made on this occasion, — " but there 
they air, at the head of my bed " ; and a cold shudder went 
over him as Zeke again touched him ominously with the 
end of the wagon-spoke. 

The sheriff's wife, though she had every assurance of the 
secret friendliness of the mob, now began to weep. 

** Not a word I " said Bob, who was continually scufSing 
his feet, in order, like Hannibal and other great com- 



272 THE 0RATS0N8 

manders, to make his forces seem more numerous than 
they were. " We won't hurt you, Mrs. Plunkett, ef you 
keep still ; but ef you make a noise while we 're gone, the 
boys outside might shoot." 

The woman became silent. 

" Some of our men '11 be left to guard your house till our 
business is finished,'' said Bob to the sheriff, who lay limp 
on the floor, growing internally angry that the Broad Run 
boys should not show more respect for his dignity. " Don't 
you move or make any soun', f er yer life," added Bob when 
he reached the top of the stairs, down which he descended 
with racket enough for three or four. 

As they left the house with the keys, Bob and Zeke gave 
orders in a low voice to an imaginary guard at the door. 

All that Tom had made out was that the irruption of 
Bob McCord into the jail signified imminent danger to 
himself, and when Bob had gone out again, Tom's heart 
failed him. He stood still, with his fingers on the iron grat- 
ing in the dungeon door. For this last night the sheriff 
had taken the additional precaution of leaving Tom's 
manacles on when he had locked him in the dungeon, and 
the lack of the free use of his hands added much to his 
sense of utter helplessness in the face of deadly peril. He 
could not see any light where he stood, gripping the bars 
and staring into the passage-way ; but he could not endure 
to leave this position and go back into the darker darkness 
behind him. Confinement and anxiety had sapped the 
physical groundwork of courage. When he heard Bob and 



FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED 273 

Zeke come past the jail on their return from the black- 
smith shop he had made out nothing but the sound of feet, 
whether of friends or foes he did not know ; and when the 
sounds died away, a horror of deadly suspense fell upon 
him. All black and repulsive possibilities became immi- 
nent probabilities in the time that he waited. Over and 
over again he heard men and horses coming, and then 
discovered that he was hearkening to the throbbing of his 
own pulse. At last he heard the key turning in the lock of 
the front door, and was sure that the enemy had arrived. 
It was not till Bob said, when he had got into the hall and 
was trying the keys in the dungeon door, " Quick, Tom, fer 
God A'mighty's sake I ^ that his spirit, numb with terror, 
realized the presence of friends. 

"What 's the matter!" asked Tom, his teeth chattering 
with reaction from the long suspense. 

" Jake Hogan 'U be h-yer in less 'n no time'^; and with 
that Bob, having got the door open, almost dragged the 
poor fellow out, taking time, however, to shut the front door 
and lock it, and taking the keys with him, " fer fear some- 
body might git in while we 're away," as he said laughing. 

Once the jail was cleared, a new perplexity arose. Until 
this moment it had not occurred to Bob to consider what 
disposal he should make of the prisoner. 

" What am I goin' to do weth you, Tom t " he demanded, 
when they stood concealed in the thick obscurity under an 
elm-tree on the side of the court-house opposite to the jail. 
" I wonder 'f you had n' better light out t " 



274 THE 0BAYS0N8 

"Not without Abra'm says so," answered Tom, still 
shivering and feeling a strong impulse to run away in tho 
face of all prudence. 

"Looky h-yer, Tom; when I got the keys from the 
sher'f, I brought them all along. They 's the big key to the 
jail, un the key to the dungeon. Now, h-yer, I 've got two 
more. It seems like as ef one uv 'em had orter onlock the 
east room of the jail, un liker 'n not t' other's the court- 
house key. S'pose 'n I put you in there ; they 'U never look 
there in the worl'." 

" I s'pose so," said Tom, " if you think it 's safe." But in 
his present state he shuddered at the idea of being left 
alone in the dark. " If Abra'm thinks I 'd better not clear 
out, I 'U be where I 'm wanted in the morning, and they 
can't say I have run off," he added. 

So Tom was locked in the court-house and left to feel his 
way about in the dark. He found, at length, the judge's 
bench, the only one with a cushion on it, and lay down 
there to wait for daylight, listening with painful attention 
to every sound in the streets. When at length he heard the 
tramp of horses and conjectured that Jake's party were 
actually looking for him, he could not overcome the unrea- 
sonable terror that weakness and suspense had brought 
upon him. He groped his way up the stairs and slunk into 
one of the jury rooms above for greater security. 



XXV 

LIKE A. WOLF ON THS FOLD 




^ARBARA, at her uncle's house, had not been 
1 able to go to bed- Tom's fate, she knew, 
I wonld be decided the next day, and whatever 
I of hope there might be for him was hidden in 
the mind of his lawyer. Mrs. Grayson had involuntarily 
fallen into a slumber, and the aoxions Barbara sat by her 
in the darkness, wishing for the coming of the day, whose 
coming was nevertheless dreadful to her. The sound of a 
we^n rattling in another street startled her; she went to 
the window and strained her eyes against the darkness 
outside of the glass. Though she could not suspect that in 
the wagon was Bob McCord hurrying to the rescue of Tom, 
she was yet full of vague and indistinct forebodings. She 
wished she might have passed the night in the jail. A little 
after midnight she thought she heard a sound as of horses' 
feet: again she went to the window, but she could not see 
or hear anything. Then again she heard it : there could be 
no mistake now; she could make out plainly the confused 
thudding of many hoofs on the unpaved road. Presently, 



276 THE GRATSOm 

from sound rather than from sight, she knew that a con- 
siderable troop of horsemen were passing in front of her 
uncle's house. She left the room*quietly, and spoke to her 
uncle as she passed his door; but without waiting for him 
she went out into the street and ran a little way after the 
horsemen, stopping, hearkening, turning this way and that 
in her indecision, and at length, after groping among the 
trees and stumps in the public square, reached the jail. 

Jake Hogan had sent forward two men to watch the 
prison, while he with his main force surrounded Plunkett's 
house. The sheriff had obediently kept his place where 
Bob had laid him, in the middle of the floor, until he got 
into a chilL Then, as he heard no sound outside of the 
house, his courage revived, and he crept back into bed. 

Jake had come prepared to play the bully, according to 
agreement, in order to save Plunkett's reputation for 
courage and fidelity, but he was disconcerted at finding 
the door of the house wide open ; he had not expected that 
things would be made so easy. After stumbling over the 
fallen door-facing, he boldly mounted the stairs with as 
much noise as possible. Entering Plunkett's bedroom, he 
cried out in what he conceived to be his most impressive 
tones: 

" Gin up the keys of that ar jail, ur your time has come.'' 

"What air you up to now!'' cried the sheriff, angry at 
this second visit. "You knocked me down and got the 
keys nigh on to an hour ago. Now what in thunderation 
does this hullabaloo mean, I want to know." 



LIKE A WOLF OX THE FOLD 277 

" Wha' choo talkin't '' said Jake. " We hain't on'y jest 
got yer." 

" Only just got here!'' said the sheriflE, rising up in bed. 
" Only just come t Then there 's another crowd that must 
'a' done the business ahead of you. There was more 'n 
forty men surrounded this house awhile ago, and beat down 
my door, and come upstairs here in this room, and knocked 
me down and choked me black and blue and went off with 
the keys. I guess they We hung Tom and gone before this." 

"Looky h-yer now, we don't want no more uv your 
tricks. We 're the on'y party out to-night, sartin shore, un 
we 're boun' to have them air keys ur die," said Jake, trag- 
ically. " You might 's well gin 'em up fust as last. Hank 
Plunkett, un save yourself trouble." 

" Well, if you want 'em, you 11 have to look 'em up," 
said the sheriff. " I have n't got 'em, and 1 11 be hanged if 
I know who has. I was knocked down and nearly killed 
by a whole lot of men. Kill me, if you 've got a mind to, 
but you won't find the keys in this house. So there now." 
And he lay back on his pillow. 

" Come on, boys ; we '11 s'arch the jail. Un ef we 've 
been fooled weth. Hank Plunkett 11 have to pay f er it." 

With that the Broad Run boys departed and the sheriff 

got up and dressed himself. There was a mystery about 

two lynching parties in one night; and there might be 

something in it that would affect his bond or his political 

prospects if it were not looked into at once. He resolved 

to alarm the town. 
24 



278 THE GRATSONS 

At the jail door Hogan encountered Barbara piteously 
begging the men to spare her brother's life. 

*' Looky h-yer/' he said, in a graveyard voice, " this ain't 
no kind uv a place fer women folks. You go Vay.^ 

" No, I won't go away. I 'm Tom's sister and I won't 
leave him. You must n't shoot him. He did n't kill George 
Lockwood." 

" You mus' go 'way, ur you '11 git shot yer own self," 
said Jake. 

"Well, shoot me — d' you think I caret I 'd rather die 
with Tom. I know your voice, Jake Hogan; and if you 
kill Tom you '11 be a murderer, for he is n't." 

" Take her away, boys," said Jake, a little shaken by this 
unexpected appeal. But nobody offered to remove Bar- 
bara. All of these rude fellows were touched at sight of 
her tears. It had not occurred to them to take into account 
the sister or the mother when they thoughtlessly resolved 
to hang Tom. But the path of the reformer is always 
beset by such thorns. 

" Down weth that ar door ! " cried Jake, not to be bafl&ed 
in his resolution, and convinced by Barbara's solicitude that 
Tom was certainly within. There was reason for haste too, 
for the villagers were already stirring, and there might be 
opposition to his summary proceedings. But pompous 
commands have not much effect on heavy doors, and Jake 
found that this one would not down so easily as he hoped. 
Jake began pounding on it with the poll of an ax borrowed 
from a neighboring wood-pile, and meanwhile dispatched 



LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD 279 

two men to break open the blacksmith shop and fetch a 
sledge-hammer. But S'manthy's boy, on his own motion, 
went around to the back of the jail with the purpose of 
trying the window. Finding it as Bob had left it, with the 
grating torn out, he entered the jail and penetrated to the 
dungeon, coming back presently to tell Jake that he had 
found the window out, the dungeon door open, and Tom 
" clean gone." 

" Thunder ! " said Jake, dropping his ax. " Who could 
they be I The shuruff says they wuz more 'n forty on 'em ; 
so they could n't be rescuers. They hain't ten men in the 
wide worr 'at thinks Tom 's innercent. Like 's not it 's a 
lot uv fellers f um the south-east of the k-younty, down 
towards Hardscrabble, whar Lockwood had some kin. 
They 've hung him summers. Let 's ride 'roun' un see ef 
we kin fin' any traces. Un ef Hank Plunkett has played a 
trick, we '11 git squar' some day, ur my name hain't Hogan." 

The men mounted and rode off. Barbara, who stood by 
in agony while Jake beat upon the door, and who had heard 
the report that Tom was gone, could not resist the despair- 
ing conclusion that he must have suffered death. In her 
broken-hearted perplexity she could think of nothing better 
than to hurry to the tavern where Hiram Mason was a 
boarder. Half the people of the village were by this time 
in the streets, running here and there and saying the most 
contradictory things. Mason had been awakened with the 
rest, and by the time Barbara reached the tavern door, she 
encountered him coming out. 



280 THE QRAYSONS 

a Wy, Barbara ! for goodness' sake, what brought you 
out t What has happened t '' he said. 

" O Mr. Mason ! I 'm afraid Tom 's dead. I ran after 
Jake Hogan and his men when I heard them pass, and 
begged Jake to let Tom off. They tried to drive me away, 
but I staid ; and when they got into jail, Tom was n't 
there. Jake said that the sheriff said he had been taken 
away and lynched by more than forty men. Oh, if they 
have killed the poor boy ! ^ 

" Maybe it is n't so bad," said Hiram, as he took her left 
hand in his right and led her, as he might have led a weep- 
ing child, along the dark street toward her uncle's house, 
" Don't cry any more, Barbara ! " 

" I should n't wonder," he said, after a while, " if Bob 
McCord knows something of this." 

*' But we left him at home to-night," said Barbara ; and 
then she began to weep again, and to say over and over in 
an undertone, " O my poor Tom !" 

Mason could not say any more. He only grasped her 
hand the more firmly in his and walked on. Presently a 
wagon came across the walk just in front of them, issuing 
from an alley. 

"That 's Butts's wagon, and that 's his bay colt, I do 
believe," said Barbara, looking sharply at the dark silhou- 
ette of the horse. " I know the way that horse carries his 
head. I wonder if Butts has been mean enough to have 
anything to do with this wicked business." 

What Barbara saw was Zeke Tucker hastening to replace 



LIKE A WOLF OX TUB FOLD 281 

the horse in the stable, while Bob remained in town to keep 
a furtive watch over the court-house till morning. Mason 
thought he saw some one moving in the alley, and a detect- 
ive impulse seized him. 

" Stay here a moment, Barbara," he said, and letting go 
of her hand he ran into the alley and came plump upon the 
burly form of Bob McCord. 

" It 's all right, Mr. Mason,'' chuckled Bob. " Tom 's safe 
V soun' where they '11 never find him. By thunder ! " 
And Bob looked ready to explode with laughter; the whole 
thing was to him one of the best of jokes. 

" Come and tell Barbara," said Mason. 

Bob came out of the alley to where Barbara was standing 
near the white-spotted trunk of a young sycamore, and 
recounted briefly how he had fooled Butts, and how he had 
got the keys from Plunkett. His resonant laughter grated 
on Barbara's feelings, but she was too grateful to him to 
resent the rudeness of his nature. 

'* Where is Tom ? " Barbara asked. 

" Oh ! I' m a-playin' Abe Lincoln," said Bob in a whisper. 
" The fewer that knows, the better it '11 be. Tom says he 
won't light out, unless Abra'm says to. Speak'n' of Abe 
Lincoln," he said, " I don't want to be seed weth him to- 
night. You go back, Mr. Mason, un tell Abe 't Tom 's safe. 
Ef he thinks Tom's chances is better to stan' trial, w'y, he '11 
find 'im in the court-house to-morry when the court wants 
'im, shore as shootin'. He 's on'y out on bail to-night," 
said Bob, unwilling to lose his joke, '* But ef Abe thinks 
24* 



282 THE GRATSONS 

Tom hain't got no chance afore a jury, let 'im jest wink one 
eye, kind-uh, un 'fore daybreak I '11 have the boy tacked 
into a bear's hole 't I know of, un he kin lay there safe fer 
a week un then put out for Wisconsin, ur Missouri, ur the 
loway country. You go 'n' let Abe know, un I 11 see 
Barb'ry safe home — she won't gimme the mitten to-night, 
I 'low." And Bob chuckled heartily j life was all so droll 
to this man, blessed with a perfect digestion and not 
worried by any considerable sense of responsibility. 

Mason went up to Lincoln's room and awakened him to 
tell him the story of the night. The lawyer's face relaxed, 
and at length he broke into a merry but restrained laughter. 
He saw almost as much fun in it as Bob McCord had, and 
Mason felt a little out of patience that he should be so much 
amused over such a life-and-death affair. 

" Tom does n't want to be an outlaw," said Lincoln very 
gravely, when the question of Tom's going or staying was 
put to him. " I don't believe he could escape ; and if he 
did, life would hardly be worth the having. There is only 
just one chance of proving his innocence, but I think he 'd 
better stay and take that. Maybe we 11 fail ; if we do, it 
may yet be time enough to fall back on Bob and his bear's 
hole. By the way, where has Bob stowed Tom for the 
night!" 

" Bob won't tell," said Mason. " He says he 's playing 
Abe Lincoln ; and the fewer that know, the better." 

Lincoln laughed again, and nodded his head approvingly. 
" So he brings Tom to court in good time," he said. 



LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD 283 

Mason went ont and enconntered Bob in the street, and 
gave him Lincoln's decision. Then Hiram went and told 
Barbara about it, and sat with her and her mother until 
morning. A while before daybreak, finding the town free 
from any person disposed to molest Tom, Bob came to 
Barbara and had her make a cup of coffee and give him a 
sandwich or two. These he took out of the back gate of 
the Grayson garden and left them with Tom in the court- 
house. 

The next morning at half-past 6 o'clock the lawyers of 
the circuit took their seats at the breakfast-table in the 
meagerly furnished, fly-specked dining-room of the tavern, 
the windows of which were decorated with limp chintz cur- 
tains, and the space of which was entirely filled with the 
odors of coffee and fried ham, mingled with smells emitted 
by the rough-coat plastering and the poplar of the wood- 
work : this compound odor of the building was a genius of 
the place. The old judge, who sat at the end of the table 
opposite to that occupied by the landlady, spread his red 
silk handkerchief across his lap preparatory to beginning 
his meal, and looked up from under his overhanging brows 
at Lincoln, who was just taking his seat. 

" What 's this, Lincoln t I hear your client was carried 
off last night by a mob of forty or fifty men and probably 
hanged. And you don't even get up early to see about it." 

" My client will be in court this morning, Judge," said 
the lawyer, looking up from his plate. 

" What ! " 



284 THE GRATSOXS 

" I am informed that he is in a safe place, and he will be 
ready for trial this morning.'' 

" Where is he ? '^ asked the judge, looking penetratingly 
at Lincoln. 

" I should be glad to tell your Honor ; but the fact is, I 
can't manage to find out myself." 

Then one of the other lawyers spoke up. " Lincoln, from 
what- you say, I suppose the first mob took Grayson to save 
him from the second. But I don't see how the Old Boy 
you raised forty men on your side. I would n't have 
believed that the poor devil had so many friends." 

" I ! I did n't raise any men. I was sound asleep, and 
did n't know a word about it until the row was aU over." 

After breakfast there was much discussion of the case 
among the lawyers standing in a group in the bar-room. 
What would Lincoln do t Why had he not moved for a 
change of venue! Why had he subpoenaed no witnesses? 
Would he plead necessary self-defense, or would Tom 
plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the gov- 
ernor! 

The sheriff was very active in the latter part of the night 
in telling his story and in making a display of zeal. It 
was he who had taken time by the forelock in telling the 
judge all about the events of the night; how his door had 
been beaten in by a great mob ; how he had been rudely 
knocked down and choked until he was almost insensible ; 
and how pistols had been cocked and placed against his 
head. Then he told of the coming of the second mob. He 
did not know which way Tom had been taken, or whether 



LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD 285 

he had been hanged or not, but he had sent the deputy to 
make inquiries. 

In making an examination of the prison after daylight, 
Sheriff Plunkett found the keys of the jail inside of the 
hallway, as though they had been thrown in at the broken- 
down window. When he went to force the court-house 
door, the key belonging to it was found lying on the door- 
step ; and when on opening the door he saw Tom with his 
manacles on, awaiting him, his surprise was complete. 

" I thought you 'd been hung," he said. 

" Not yet," said Tom, grimly. 

** Say, where did that mob come from that got you out ! " 

" You can't question me," said Tom, " I 'm not a witness 
to-day ; I 'm a prisoner." 

Many of the excited people, moved by the restive long- 
ings of a vague curiosity, had followed the sheriff into the 
court-room, and the news of Tom's presence there soon 
spread throughout the village. There were already all 
sorts of contradictory and exciting rumors in the streets 
about the events of the preceding night ; women let their 
breakfast coffee boil over while they discussed the affair 
across back fences ; men almost forgot to eat anything in 
their eagerness for news ; country people were flocking in 
by all the roads and listening to all sorts of contradictory 
tales told by the villagers. When it became known that 
Tom was alive and awaiting his trial there was a general 
rush to secure seats, and the court-room was filled long 
before the bell in its belfry had announced the hour for the 
trial to begin. 



XXVI 



CIBCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 




T last the sherifPs new deputy went up the 
court-house stairs, and pulled away on the 
rope that rattled the bell in the belfry — a 
bell that uttered its notes in irregular groups, 
now pausing for breath, and now sending one hurried 
stroke clattering hard on the heels of another. Its clank- 
ing had no more dignity than the words of a gossip eagerly 
tattling small news. While the bell was yet banging, 
Judge Watkins's iron-gray head and stooped shoulders 
appeared ; he pushed his way slowly through the press, his 
brows contracted in impatience at finding even the physical 
progress of the court obstructed by the vulgar. The peo- 
ple squeezed themselves as nearly flat as possible in the 
endeavor to make way for his Honor, of whom they were 
as much in awe as school-boys of a stem master. Bob 
McCord, erect in the aisle, was an island in the very chan- 
nel, and the most serious obstacle to the judge's passage ; 
nor did it help things for Bob to turn sidewise, for he was 
equally obtrusive in all his dimensions. The judge was a 
good deal ruffled in his endeavors to pull by him. 

286 



CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 287 

" I wish I wuz littler, Jedge,'' said Bob, with a fearless 
laugh that startled the bystanders, " but I can't seem to 
take myself in another eench." 

The dyspeptic judge was not without a sense of humor. 
It would be a derogation from his dignity to say that he 
smiled at Bob's apology; but certainly there was a little 
relaxation of his brows, and a less severe set to his lips, 
when he finally edged past and left the crowd to close 
around Big Bob again. 

The judge began the session by ordering the sheriff to 
bring in the grand jury. This in turn was no easy task ; 
but at length that body succeeded in descending the stairs, 
defiling through the aisle, and getting into the jury box. 
In a few words, precise and tart, the judge charged the 
grand jurymen to inquire into two lawless attacks which 
had been made on the sheriff during the night; into the 
conduct of the sheriff ; and into the evidently insecure con- 
dition of the county jail. Then, when the members of the 
grand inquest had reluctantly made their painful way up 
the stairs to their room overhead, the judge called the case 
of The People of the State of Illinois versus Thamas Chrayso^ij 
Junior J and there was a hush in the crowded court-room. 

Tom sat regarding the crowd with such feelings as a 
gladiator doomed to mortal combat might have had in 
looking on the curious spectators in the Coliseum. Mrs. 
Grayson and Barbara had been provided with chairs within 
the bar ; but on his mother and sister Tom did not dare to 
let his eyes rest. He saw, however, without looking directly 



288 THE GBATSONS 

at them, tliat little Janet was standing by Barbara, and 
that his uncle sat with crestfallen face by his mother's side, 
and that his Aunt Charlotte had not come at all. Just out- 
side of the bar, but immediately behind Mrs. Grayson, so 
as to form one of the group, stood Hiram Mason, erect and 
unblushing. One of the landmarks on which Tom's gaze 
rested of tenest was the burly form and round, ruddy face of 
Big Bob McCord, half way between the judge and the door. 
And at one of the open windows there presently appeared 
the lank countenance of Jake Hogan, who had climbed up 
from the outside, with the notion that he was somehow 
bound to supervise the administration of public justice. 
He managed with difficulty to get perching-room on the 
window-sill. Into two of the raised back seats a group of 
women had squeezed themselves to their last density, and 
among them, singular and conspicuous as she always was, 
sat Rachel Albaugh. Tom's was not the only eye that 
observed her ; the lawyers from other counties were asking 
one another who she was, and she had even attracted the 
attention of the judge himself; for a gallant interest in 
good-looking women lingers late in a Virginia gentleman, 
no matter how austere his mold. At a pause in the prelim- 
inary proceedings the judge spoke to the clerk, sitting just 
below and in front of him, at a raised desk. 

** Magill, who is that girl t " he asked. 

" Which one, Judge t ^ queried Magill, pretending to be 
in doubt. 

" You need n't look so innocent. Of course I mean the 



CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 289 

one a modest man can't look at without being a little 
ashamed of himself. You know her well enough, I 'm sure.'^ 

" I s'pose yer Honor manes John Albaugh's daughter," 
said Magill. ** She 's the one that 's at the bottom of all 
this row, they say.'' 

As soon as the judge heard that Rachel's beauty had 
something to do with the case in hand he fell back into his 
official reserve, as though he felt a scruple that to talk about 
her, or even to take note of her beauty, might be, in some 
sort, a receiving of evidence not properly before the court. 

The jury was very soon impaneled, for in that day entire 
ignorance of the matter in hand was not thought indispen- 
sable to a wise decision. Lincoln made no objection to any 
of the names drawn for jurymen except that of Abijah 
Grimes, of Broad Run Township. The exclusion of Bijy's 
open countenance from the jury box was another blow to 
Jake Hogan's faith in the institutions of the land. His brow 
visibly darkened ; here was one more sign that a rich man's 
nephew could not be punished, and that a poor man had n't 
no kind uv a chance in sech a dodrotted country. No time 
was spent in an opening speech; the preliminary oratory, 
by which our metropolitan barristers consume the time of 
an indulgent court and make a show of earning their pre- 
posterous fees, was rarely indulged in that simpler land and 
time. The fees paid, indeed, would not have justified the 
making of two speeches. 

No portion of the crowd tucked into the four walls of the 

Moscow court-house showed more interest in the trial than 
25 



290 THE GRAY80N8 

the members of the bar. The unsolved mystery that hung 
about Lincoln's line of defense, the absence of any witnesses 
in Tom's behalf, the neglect of all the ordinary precautions, 
such as the seeking of a change of venue, produced a kind 
of flurry of expectation inside of the bar ; and the lawyers 
in their blue sparrow-tail coats with brass buttons, which 
constituted then a kind of professional uniform, moved 
about with as much animation as uneasy jay-birds, to which 
the general effect of their costume gave them a sort of 
family likeness. Their attention was divided, it is true; 
for when a member of the bar did succeed in settling him- 
self into a chair, which he always canted back on its hind 
legs, he was pretty sure to get into a position that would 
enable him to get a glance now and then at the face of 
Rachel Albaugh, who was interesting, not only for her 
beauty, but on account of her supposed relation to the case 
actually before the court. Never had Rachel's lustrous eyes 
seemed finer, never had her marvelous complexion shown a 
tint more delicious ; her interest in the case lent animation 
to her expression, and her attitude of listening set off the 
graceful turn of her features. 

The prosecuting attorney called Henry Miller to prove 
that Tom had been irritated with Lockwood at Albaugh's, 
but Henry did what he could for Tom, by insisting that it 
did n't " amount to anything '^ as a quarrel ; it was " only a 
huff," he said. The next witness called was the nervous 
young man who had stood balancing himself on the thresh- 
old of Wooden & Snyder's store when Tom had threatened 



CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 291 

Lockwood, in paying back the money borrowed to discharge 
his gambling debt. He was a habitual gossip, and the story 
lost nothing from his telling. He did not forget to men- 
tion with evident pleasure that Rachel Albaugh's name had 
been used in that quarrel. At this point Rachel, finding 
too many eyes turned from the witness to the high seat at 
the back of the room, lowered her green veiL 

Then the carpenter who had bought a three-cornered file 
on the morning of Tom's outburst against Lockwood also 
swore to the details of that affaii* as he remembered them, 
and the villager who had come in to buy nails to repair his 
garden fence gave a third version of the quarrel; but 
Snyder, the junior proprietor of the store, told the incident 
as it was colored by his partisanship for Lockwood and in 
a way the most damaging to Tom. He swore that Lock- 
wood was really afraid of Tom, and that at Lockwood's 
suggestion he had himself got Blackman to speak to Tom's 
uncle about it. The young men followed who had heard 
Tom say, as he left town after his break with his uncle, 
that George Lockwood was the cause of all his troubles, 
and that Lockwood " had better not get in his way again, 
if he knew what was good for him.'' 

Lincoln sat out that forenoon without making a note, 
without raising an objection, without asking the witnesses 
a question, and without a book or a scrap of paper before 
him. He did not break silence at all, except to waive the 
cross-examination of each witness. The impression made 
in Tom's favor by his voluntary appearance at the trial, 



292 THE GRAYSONS 

when he might perhaps have got away, was by this time 
dissipated, and the tide set now overwhelmingly against 
him J and to this tide his self-contained lawyer had offered 
not the slightest opposition. It was a serious question even 
among the lawyers whether or not Lincoln had given up 
the case. But if he had given up the case, why did he not 
fight on every small point, as any other lawyer would have 
done, for the sake of making a show of zealt To Allen, 
the public prosecutor, there was something annoying and 
ominous in Lincoln's silence; something that made him 
apprehensive of he knew not what. 

When the court took its noon recess Barbara and her 
mother were in utter despondency. It seemed to them that 
Lincoln was letting the case go by default, while the pros- 
ecuting attorney was full of energetic activity. 

" Abra'm,'^ said Mrs. Grayson, intercepting Lincoln as he 
passed out of the bar with his hat drawn down over his 
anxious brows, " ain't ther' nothin' you kin do for Tom ? 
Can*t you show 'em that he never done it f'' 

" I '11 do whatever I can, Aunt Marthy, but you must 
leave it to me.'' So saying, he quickly left her and pushed 
on out of the door, while his learned brethren gathered into 
a group within the bar, and unanimously agreed in con- 
demning his neglect of every opportunity to break the force 
of the evidence against Tom. Why had he not objected to 
much of it, why had he not cross-questioned, why did he 
not ask for a change of venue yesterday! 

When the sheriff and his deputy, at the close of this 



CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 293 

forenoon session, passed out of the court-house with Tom, 
there was a rush of people around and in front of them. 
Men and boys climbed up on wagons, tree stumps, and 
whatever afforded them a good view of the criminal. For 
the most part the people were only moved by that heartless 
curiosity which finds a pleasurable excitement in the sight 
of other people's woes, but there was also very manifest an 
increasing resentment toward Tom, and not a little of that 
human ferocity which is easily awakened in time of excite- 
ment and which reminds us of a sort of second cousinship 
that subsists between a crowd of men and a pack of wolves 
— or between a pack of men and a crowd of wolves. 

When Tom found himself at length landed within the 
friendly prison walls, out of sight and hearing of the 
unfeeling crowd, he was in the deepest dejection. For 
what, indeed, that could happen now would be sufBcient to 
turn back such a tide of popular condemnation t Barbara 
came to him presently with a dinner more relishable than 
that which the sheriff was accustomed to serve to prisoners, 
and all the way to the jail idle people had strolled after 
her; and though no one treated her with disrespect, she 
could hear them saying, "That 's his sister," and their 
voices were neither S3rmpathetic nor friendly. When she 
set down the tray on one of the stools in front of Tom, she 
kept her eyes averted from his, lest he should detect the 
despondency that she knew herself to be incapable of hid- 
ing. On his part, Tom made a feint to eat the food, for 

Barbara's sake. But after examining first one tid-bit and 
25* 



294 



THE GBATS0N8 



then another, essaying to nibble a little first at this and 
then at that, he got up abruptly and left the whole. 
" 'T is n't any use, Barb," he said, huskily. ** I can't eat." 
And Barbara, knowing how much need her brother had 
for all his self-control, did not trust herself to speak, but 
took up the tray and went out again, leaving Tom, when 
the deputy had locked the door, sitting alone on the bench 
with his head between his hands. 




xxvir 

UGHT m A DARK PLACE 

IRE people who had seats in the conrt-room 

T^^ wiTe, for the most part, too wise in their gen- 
^Jg eration to A-acate them duriog the noon recess. 
1 Jake Hogan clambered down from his uncom- 
fortable window-roost for a little while, and Boh McCord 
took a plnnge into the grateful fresh air, but both got back 
in time to secure their old points of observation. The law- 
yers came back early, and long before the judge returned the 
ruddy-faced Magill was seated behind bis little desk, facing 
the crowd and pretending to write. He was ill at ease; 
the heart of the man had gone out to Tom. He never for a 
moment doubted that Tom killed Lockwood, bat then a 
sneak like Lockwood " richly desarved it," in Magill's esti- 
mation. Judge Watkins's austere face assumed a yet more 
severe expression ; for though pity never interfered with 
justice in his nature, it often rendered the old man unhappy, 
and therefore more than usually irascible. 

There was a painful pause after the judge bad taken his 
seat and ordered the prisoner brought in. It was like a 
wait before a funeral service, but rendered ten times more 



296 THE GBAYSOKS 

distressing by the element of suspense. The judge's quill 
pen could be heard scratching on the paper as he noted 
points for his charge to the jury. To Hiram Mason the 
whole trial was unendurable. The law had the aspect of a 
relentless boa-constrictor, slowly winding itself about Tom, 
while all these spectators, with merely a curious interest in 
the horrible, watched the process. The deadly creature had 
now to make but one more coil, and then, in its cruel and 
deliberate fashion, it would proceed to tighten its twists 
until the poor boy should be done to death. Barbara and 
the mother were entwined by this fate as well, while Hiram 
had not a little finger of help for them. He watched Lin- 
coln as he took seat in moody silence. Why had the lawyer 
not done anything to help Tom t Any other lawyer with a 
desperate case would have had a stack of law-books in front 
of him, as a sort of dam against the flood. But Lincoln had 
neither law-books nor so much as a scrap of paper. 

The prosecuting attorney, with a taste for climaxes, 
reserved his chief witness to the last. Even now he was 
not ready to call Sovine. He would add one more stone to 
the pyramid of presumptive proof before he capped it all 
with certainty. Markham was therefore put up to identify 
the old pistol which he had found in Tom's room. Lincoln 
again waived cross-examination. Blackman felt certain 
that he himself could have done better. He mentally con- 
structed the questions that should have been put to the 
deputy sheriff. Was the pistol hot when you found itt 
Did it smell of powder t Did the family make any objec- 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 297 

tion to your search? — Even if the judge had ruled out 
such questions the jury would have heard the questions, 
and a question often has weight in spite of inilings from the 
bench. The prosecuting attorney began to feel sure of his 
own case ) he had come to his last witness and his great 
stroke. 

" Call David Sovine/' he said, wiping his brow and look- 
ing relieved. 

" David Sovine ! David Sovine 1 David Sovine 1 ^ cried 
the sheriff in due and ancient form, though David sat 
almost within whispering distance of him. 

The witness stood up. 

" Howld up your roight hand," said the clerk. 

Then when Dave's right hand was up Magill rattled off 
the form of the oath in the most approved and clerkly style, 
only adding to its effect by the mild brogue of his pro- 
nunciation. 

" Do soPm swear 't yull tell th' truth, th' 'ole truth, en 
nuthin' V th' truth, s' yilpye God," said the clerk, without 
once pausing for breath. 

Sovine ducked his head and dropped his hand, and the 
solemnity was over. 

Dave, who was evidently not accustomed to stand before 
such a crowd, appeared embarrassed. He had deteriorated 
in appearance lately. His patent-leather shoes were bright 
as ever, his trousers were trimly held down by straps, his 
hair was well kept in place by bear's oil or what was sold 
for bear's oil, but there was a nervousness in his expression 



298 THE GBAT80N8 

and carriage that gave him the air of a man who has been 
drinking to excess. Tom looked at him with defiance, but 
Dave was standing at the right of the judge, while the pris- 
oner's dock was on the left, and the witness did not regard 
Tom at all, but told his story with clearness. Something of 
the bold assurance which he displayed at the inquest was 
lacking. His coarse face twitched and quivered, and this 
appeared to annoy him ; he sought to hide it by an affecta- 
tion of nonchalance, as he rested his weight now on one foot 
and now on the other. 

" Do you know the prisoner?" asked the prosecutor, with 
a motion of his head toward the dock. 

"Yes, well enough"; but in saying this Dave did not 
look toward Tom, but out of the window. 

" You Ve played cards with him, have n't yout " 

"Yes." 

" Tell his Honor and the jury when and where you played 
with him." 

" We played one night last July, in Wooden & Snyder's 
store." 

" Who proposed to Tom to play with you t " 

" George Lockwood. He hollered up the stove-pipe for 
Tom to come down an' take a game or two with me." 

" What did you win that night from Tom ! " 

" Thirteen dollars, an' his hat an' coat an' boots, an' his 
han'ke'chi'f an' knife." 

" Who, if anybody, lent him the money to get back his 
things which you had won ! " 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 299 

"George Lockwood." 

Here the counsel paused a moment, laid down a memo- 
randum he had been using, and looked about his table until 
he found another ; then he resumed his questions. 

" Tell the jury whether you were at the Timber Creek 
camp-meeting on the 9th of August." 

" Yes ; I was.'' 

" What did you see there ? Tell about the shooting." 

Dave told the story, with a little prompting in the way 
of questions from the lawyer, substantially as he had told it 
at the coroner's inquest. He related his parting from Lock- 
wood, Tom's appearance on the scene, Tom's threatening 
speech, Lockwood's entreaty that Tom would not shoot 
him, and then Tom's shooting. In making these statements 
Dave looked at the stairway in the corner of the court- 
room with an air of entire indiflCerence, and he even made 
one or two efforts to yawn, as though the case was a rather 
dull affair to him. 

"How far away from Mason and Lockwood were you 
when the shooting took place? " asked the prosecutor. 

" Twenty foot or more." 

" What did Tom shoot with t " 

" A pistol." 

" What kind of a pistol! " 

"One of the ole-f ashion' sort — flint-lock, weth a ruther 
long barrel." 

The prosecuting lawyer now beckoned to the sheriff, who 
handed down to him, from off his high desk, Tom's pistol. 



300 THE GRATSOKS 

" Tell the jury whether this looks like the pistol." 

" 'T was just such a one as that. I can't say it was that, 
but it was hung to the stock like that, an' about as long in 
the barrel." 

" What did Grayson do when he had shot Greorge, and 
what did you do ! " 

"Tom run off as fast as his feet could carry him, an' 
I went up ioicards George, who 'd fell over. He was dead 
ag'inst I could get there. Then purty soon the crowd come 
a-runnin' up to see what the fracas was." 

After bringing out some further details Allen turned to 
his opponent with an air of confidence and said : 

" You can have the witness, Mr. Lincoln." 

There was a brief pause, during which the jurymen 
changed their positions on the hard seats, making a little 
rustle as they took their right legs from off their left and 
hung their left legs over their right knees, or vice versA. 
In making these changes they looked inquiringly at one 
another, and it was clear that their minds were so well 
made up that even a judge's charge in favor of the prisoner, 
if such a thing had been conceivable, would have gone for 
nothing. Lincoln at length rose slowly from his chair, and 
stood awhile in silence, regarding Sovine, who seemed 
excited and nervous, and who visibly paled a little as his 
eyes sought to escape from the lawyer's gaze. 

"You said you were with Lockwood just before the 
shooting!" the counsel asked. 

" Yes." Dave was all alert and answered promptly. 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 301 

" Were you not pretty close to him when he was shot t " 

**No, I was n't," said Dave, his suspicions excited by this 
mode of attack. It appeared that the lawyer, for some rea- 
son, wanted to make him confess to having been nearer to 
the scene and perhaps implicated, and he therefore resolved 
to fight off. 

" Are you sure you were as much as ten feet away f " 

" I was more than twenty,'' said Dave, huskily. 

*' What had you and George Lockwood been doing to- 
gether?" 

" We 'd been — talking." Manifestly Dave took fresh 
alarm at this line of questioning. 

" Oh, you had ! " 

" Yes." 

" In a friendly way ? " 

" Yes, tubby shore ; we never had any fuss." 

" You parted from him as a friend ? " 

" Yes, of course." 

" By the time Tom came up you 'd got — how far away t 
Be careful now." 

" I Ve told you twiste. More than twenty feet." 

" You might have been mistaken about its being Tom 
then ? " 

" No, I was n't." 

" Did you know it was Tom before he fired t " 

" Tubby shore, I did." 

" What time of night was it ? " 

" Long towards 10, 1 sh'd think." 
26 



302 THE GRATSONS 

" It might have been 11 ? " 

" No, 't was n't later 'n about 10.-' This was said dog- 
gedly. 

"Nor before 9 1'' 

" No, 't wus nigh onto 10, I said." And the witness 
showed some irritation, and spoke louder than before. 

" How far away were you from the pulpit and meeting- 
place ? " 

" 'Twixt a half a mile an' a mile." 

" Not over a mile ? " 

" No, skiercely a mile." 

" But don't you think it might have been a little less than 
half a mile ? " 

" No, it 's nigh onto a mile. I did n't measure it, but it 's 
a mighty big three-quarters." 

The witness answered combatively, and in this mood he 
made a better impression than he did on his direct exam- 
ination. The prosecuting attorney looked relieved. Tom 
listened with an attention painful to see, his eyes moving 
anxiously from Lincoln to Dave as he wondered what point 
in Dave's armor the lawyer could be driving at. He saw 
plainly that his salvation was staked on some last throw. 

" You did n't have any candle in your hand, did you, at 
any time during the evening ! " 

'* No ! " said Dave, positively. For some reason this ques- 
tion disconcerted him and awakened his suspicion. "What 
should we have a candle for ? " he added. 

" Did either George Lockwood or Tom have a candle ? " 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 303 

" No, of course not ! What 'd they have candles for T " 

" Where were the lights on the carap-ground T " 

" Closte by the preachers' tent." 

" More than three-quarters of a mile away from the place 
where the murder took place ? " 

"Anyway as much as three-quarters/' said Dave, who 
began to wish that he could modify his previous statement 
of the distance. 

" How far away were you from Lockwood when the mur- 
der took place ? " 

" Twenty feet.'' 

** You said ^ or more ' awhile ago." 

" Well, 't wus n't no less, pVaps," said Dave, showing 
signs of worry. " You don't think I measured it, do yeh ? " 

" There were no lights nearer than three-quarters of a 
mile?" 

" No," said the witness, the cold perspiration beading on 
his face as he saw Lincoln's trap opening to receive him. 

" You don't mean to say that the platform torches up by 
the preachers' tent gave any light three-quarters of a mile 
away and in the woods ? " 

" No, of course not." 

" How could you see Tom and know that it was he that 
fired, when the only light was nearly a mile away, and 
inside a circle of tents ? " 

" Saw by moonlight," said Sovine, snappishly, disposed 
to dash at any gap that offered a possible way of escape. 

" What sort of trees were there on the ground ! " 



304 THE GBAYSOXS 

" Beech." 

" Beech-leaves are pretty thick in August f " asked Lin- 
coln. 

" Ye-es, ruther," gasped the witness, seeing a new pitfall 
yawning just ahead of him. 

"And yet light enough from the moon came through 
these thick beech-trees to let you know Tom Grayson T ^ 

" Yes." 

" And you could see him shoot?" 

" Yes." 

" And you full twenty feet away?" 

"Well, about that; nearly twenty, anyhow." Dave 
shifted his weight to his right foot. 

" And you pretend to say to this court that by the moon- 
light that you got through the beech-trees in August you 
could even see that it was a pistol that Tom had T " 

" Ye-es." Dave now stood on his left foot. 

" And you could see what kind of a pistol it was ? " This 
was said with a little laugh very exasperating to the witness. 

" Yes, I could," answered Dave, with dogged resolution 
not to be faced down. 

" And just how the barrel was hung to the stock ? " There 
was a positive sneer in Lincoln's voice now. 

" Yes." This was spoken feebly. 

" And you twenty feet or more away T " 

" I Ve got awful good eyes, an' I know what I see," 
whined the witness, apologetically. 

Here Lincoln paused and looked at Sovine, whose extreme 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 305 

disti'ess was only made the more apparent by his feeble 
endeavor to conceal his agitation. The counsel, after re- 
garding his uneasy victim for a quarter of a minute, thrust 
his hand into the tail-pocket of his blue coat, and after a lit- 
tle needless fumbling drew forth a small pamphlet in green 
covers. He turned the leaves of this with extreme deliber- 
ation, while the court-room was utterly silent. The mem- 
bers of the bar had as by general consent put their chairs 
down on all-fours, and were intently watching the struggle 
between the counsel and the witness. The sallow-faced 
judge had stopped the scratching of his quill, and had low- 
ered his spectacles on his nose, that he might study the dis- 
tressed face of the tormented Sovine. Mrs. Grayson's hands 
were on her lap, palms downward ; her eyes were fixed on 
Abra'm, and her mouth was half open, as though she were 
going to speak. 

Barbara found it hard to keep her seat, she was so eager 
for Lincoln to go on, and Tom was leaning forward breath- 
lessly in the dock ; his throat felt dry, and he choked when 
he tried to swallow; it seemed to him that he would 
smother with the beating of his heart. But it was worth 
while to turn away from these more interested parties to 
look for a moment at the ruddy face of Bob McCord, which 
was puckered to a kind of focus with an expression that 
was customary with him in a moment of supreme interest, 
as when he was drawing a sure bead on a bear or deer. It 
was worth while to regard Rachel Albaugh, who had lifted 

the veil from her face radiant with interest. Lincoln 
26» 



306 THE GEATSONS 

appeared to be the only perfectly deliberate person in the 
room. He seemed disposed to protract the situation as 
long as possible. He held his victim on the rack and he 
let him suffer. He would turn a leaf or two in his pam- 
phlet and then look up at the demoralized witness, as 
though to fathom the depth of his torture and to measure 
the result. At last he fixed his thumb firmly at a certain 
place on a page and turned his eyes to the judge. 

" Now, your Honor/' he said to the court, '* this witness,'* 
with a half-contemptuous gesture of his awkward left 
hand toward Sovine, '*has sworn over and over that he 
recognized the accused as the person who shot George 
Lockwood, near the Union camp-meeting on the night 
of the 9th of last August, and that he, the witness, was 
standing at the time twenty feet or more away, while the 
scene of the shooting was nearly a mile distant from the 
torches inside the circle of tents. So remarkably sharp are 
this witness's eyes that he even saw what kind of pistol the 
prisoner held in his hands, and how the barrel was hung to 
the stock, and he is able to identify this pistol of Grayson's 
as precisely like and probably the identical weapon." Here 
Lincoln paused and scrutinized Sovine. "All these details 
he saw and observed in the brief space of time preceding 
the fatal shot, — saw and observed them at 10 o'clock at 
night, by means of moonlight shining through the trees — 
beech-trees in full leaf. That is a pretty hard story. How 
much light does even a full moon shed in a beech woods 
like that on the Union camp-ground T Not enough to see 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 307 

your way by, as everybody knows who has had to stumble 
through such woods.'' Lincoln paused here, that the words 
he had spoken might have time to produce their due effect 
on the judge, and especially on the slower wits of some of 
the jury. Meanwhile he turned the leaves of his pamphlet. 
Then he began once more : " But, may it please the court, 
before proceeding with the witness I would like to have the 
jury look at the almanac which I hold in my hand. They 
will here see that on the night of the 9th of last August, 
when this extraordinary witness " — with a sneer at Dave, 
who had sunk down on a chair in exhaustion — " saw the 
shape of a pistol at twenty feet away, at 10 o'clock, by 
moonlight, the moon did not rise until half -past 1 in the 
morning." 

Sovine had been gasping like a fish newly taken from the 
water while Lincoln uttered these words, and he now began 
to mutter something. 

" You may have a chance to explain when the jury get 
done looking at the almanac," said the lawyer to him. 
" For the present you 'd better keep silence." 

There was a rustle of excitement in the court-room, but 
at a word from the judge the sheriff's gavel fell and all was 
still. Lincoln walked slowly toward the jury-box and gave 
the almanac to the foreman, an intelligent farmer. Coun- 
trymen in that day were used to consulting almanacs, and 
one group after another of the jurymen satisfied themselves 
that on the night of the 9th, that is, on the morning of the 
10th, the moon came up at half -past 1 o'clock. When all 



308 THE GRATSOXS 

had examined the page, the counsel recovered his little 
book. 

" Will you let me look at it T" asked the judge. 

*' Certainly, your Honor"; and the little witness was 
handed up to the judge, who with habitual caution looked 
it all over, outside and in, even examining the title-page to 
make sure that the book was genuine and belonged to the 
current year. Then he took note on a slip of paper of the 
moon's rising on the night of August 9 and 10, and handed 
back the almanac to Lincoln, who slowly laid it face down- 
ward on the table in front of him, open at the place of its 
testimony. The audience in the court-room was utterly- 
silent and expectant. The prosecuting attorney got half- 
way to his feet to object to Lincoln's course, but he thought 
better of it and sat down again. 

" Now, may it please the court," Lincoln went on, " I 
wish at this point to make a motion. I think the court will 
not regard it as out of order, as the case is very exceptional 
— a matter of life and death. This witness has solemnly 
sworn to a story that has manifestly not one word of truth 
in it. It is one unbroken falsehood. In order to take away 
the life of an innocent man he has invented this atrocious 
web of lies, to the falsity of which the very heavens above 
bear witness, as this almanac shows you. Now why does 
David Sovine go to all this trouble to perjure himself? 
Why does he wish to swear away the life of that young 
man who never did him any harm ? " Lincoln stood still a 
moment, and looked at the witness, who had grown ghastly 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 309 

pale about the lips. Then he went on, very slowly. " Be- 
cause that witness shot and killed George Lockwood him- 
self. I move your Honor, that David Sovine be arrested 
at once for murder." 

These words, spoken with extreme deliberation and care- 
ful emphasis, shook the audience like an explosion. 

The prosecutor got to his feet, probably to suggest that 
the motion was not in order, since he had yet a right to a 
re-direct examination of Sovine, but, as the attorney for 
the State, his duty was now a divided one as regarded two 
men charged with the same crime. So he waved his hand 
irresolutely, stammered inarticidately, and sat down. 

" This is at least a case of extraordinary perjury," said 
the judge. "Sheriff, arrest David Sovine! This matter 
will have to be looked into." 

The sheriff came down from his seat, and went up to the 
now stunned and bewildered Sovine. 

" I arrest you," he said, taking him by the arm. 

The day-and-night fear of detection in which Dave had 
lived for all these weeks had wrecked his self-control at 
last. 

" God I " he muttered, dropping his head with a sort of 
shudder. " ^T ain't any use keepin' it back any longer. I 
— did n't mean to shoot him, an' I would n't 'a' come here 
ag'inst Tom if I could 'a' got away." 

The words appeared to be wrung from him by some 
internal agony too strong for him to master; they were 
the involuntary result of the breaking down of his forces 



310 THE GRAT80XS 

under prolonged suffering and terror, culminatiQg in the 
slow torture inflicted by his cross-examination. A minute 
later, when his spasm of irresolution had passed off, he 
would have retracted his confession if he coidd. But the 
sheriff's deputy, with the assistance of a constable, was 
already leading him through the swaying crowd in the 
aisle, while many people got up and stood on the benches 
to watch the exit of the new prisoner. When at length 
Sovine had disappeared out of the door the spectators 
turned and looked at Tom, sitting yet in the dock, but with 
the certainty of speedy release before him. The whole 
result of Lincoln's masterful stroke was now for the first 
time realized, and the excitement bade fair to break over 
bounds. McCord doubled himself up once or twice in the 
effort to repress his feelings out of respect for the court, 
but his emotions were too much for him ; his big fist, 
grasping his ragged hat, appeared above his head. 

" Goshamity ! Hooray I " he burst out with a stentorian 
voice, stamping his foot as he waved his hat. 

At this the whole court-roomful of people burst into 
cheers, laughter, cries, and waving of hats and handker- 
chiefs, in spite of the sheriff's sharp rapping and shouts of 
" Order in court ! " And when at length the people were 
quieted a little, Mrs. Grayson spoke up, with a choking 
voice : 

" Jedge, ain't you a-goin' to let him go now f " 

There was a new movement of feeling, and the judge 
called out, " Sheriff, order in court ! " But his voice was 
husky and tremulous. He took off his spectacles to wipe 



LIGHT IN A DARK PLA CE 311 

them, and he looked out of the window behind him, and 
put his handkerchief first to one eye, then to the other, 
before he put his glasses back. 

" May it please the court,'' said the tall lawyer, who had 
remained standing, waiting for the tempest to subside, 
and who now spoke in a subdued voice, "I move your 
Honor, that the jury be instructed to render a verdict 
of *Not guilty/'' The judge turned to the prosecuting 
attorney. 

" I don't think, your Honor," stammered Allen, " that I 
ought to object to the motion of my learned brother, under 
the peculiar circumstances of this case." 

" I don't think you ought," said the judge, promptly, and 
he proceeded to give the jury instructions to render the 
desired verdict. As soon as the jury, nothing loath, had 
gone through the formality of a verdict, the sheriff came 
and opened the door of the box to allow Tom to come out. 

" O Tom ! they are letting you out," cried Janet, running 
forward to meet him as he came from the dock. She had 
not quite understood the drift of these last proceedings 
until this moment. 

This greeting by little Janet induced another burst of 
excitement. It was no longer of any use for the judge to 
keep on saying " Sheriff, command order in court I " All 
the sheriff's rapping was in vain; it was impossible to 
, arrest and fine everybody. The judge was compelled to 
avail himself of the only means of saving the court's 
dignity by adjourning for the day, while Mrs. Grayson 
was already embracing her Tommy under his very eyes. 



312 THE GRATSONS 

As for Barbara, overcome by the reaction of feeling, she 
sat still in passive happiness which she did not care to 
show to this crowd, whose late unfriendly manifestations 
toward Tom she could not yet quite forgive. Hardly con- 
scious of what was passing around her, she did not observe 
that her mother had presently let go her hold on Tom, and 
that Tom had come near and was standing in front of her. 
Her natural reserve made her wish to avoid a scene in 
public, but there are times when natural reserve is not a 
sufficient barrier. Tom gently put his hand on her shoul- 
der and said " Barb," then all sense of the presence of 
others was obliterated in an instant. The only fact that 
she took note of was that her brother was there before her 
with unmauacled hands, free to go where he listed and for- 
ever delivered from the danger that had hung over him so 
imminently. Of what she did you must not expect a de- 
scription j embraces and kisses of joy would seem hysterical 
if set down here in black and white for readers of our time, 
who like the color washed out of a human passion before 
it is offered to them. No I no I let us turn away — we do not 
like such things. But those hearty Elinois folk who looked 
on that scene between Barbara and Tom, and whose quick 
sympathies made them part of it, did not feel the slightest 
disapproval when they saw the faithful sister put her arms 
about Tom's neck; and every one of her kisses they 
seconded with clapping of hands and cheers, and some of 
the people were even foolish enough to weep for sympathy. 




XXVIII 

FREE 

HHK lawyers presently congratulated Lincoln, 

T" -^ Barbara tried to thank him, and Judge Wat- 
J^ kios felt that Impartial Justice herself, as rep- 
1 resented in his own person, could afford to 
praise the young man for his conduct of the case. 

"Abr'ani," said Mrs. Grayson, "d'yeh know I kind uv 
lost confidence in you when you sot there so long without 
doin' anything," Then, after a moment of pause : " AbHam, 
I 'm thinkin' I 'd ort to deed you my farm. You 've 'arncd 
it, my son ; the good Lord A'raighty knows you have," 

" 1 11 never take one cent, Aunt Marthy — not a single 
red cent"; and the lawyer turned away to grasp Tom's 
hand. But the poor fellow who had so recently felt the 
halter about his neck could not yet speak his gratitude. 
" Tom here," said Lincoln, " will be a help in your old days, 
Aunt Marthy, and then 1 11 be paid a hundred times. You 
see it 11 tickle me to think that when you talk about 
this you '11 say : * That 's the same Abe Lincoln that I 
used to knit stockings for when he was a poor little fel- 
27 ,„ 



314 THE GEATSONS 

low, with his bare toes sticking out of ragged shoes in the 
snow.'" 

Mrs. Grayson tried to say something more, but she 
could not. 

Tom got his speech at length, when he saw the gigan- 
tesque form and big laughing red face of Bob McCord 
approaching him. 

" Bob ! " he said, " you dear old Bob I God A'mighty 
bless you, old fellow." 

" I 'm that tickled," said Bob, rocking to and fro with 
amusement. " Tom, you 'd orto V seed Jake Hogan's face. 
I watched it closte. Go to thunder! How it did git mixed 
about the time you wuz let out ! I 'm a-goin' to find 'im 
un see how he feels agin this time"; and Bob let go of 
Tom's hand and moved off through the crowd to look for 
Jake. 

Tom took mechanically all the congratulations offered to 
him. Rachel came with the rest ; there were some traces 
of tears about her long lashes as she beamed on Tom the 
full effulgence of her beauty and friendliness. Tom gave 
a little start when he saw her; then he took her hand, as 
he did that of the others, in a half-unconscious way. He 
was everybody's hero in the reaction of feeling, but he had 
been so near to the gallows within an hour that he had 
difficulty yet in appreciating the change. 

" You '11 come back into the office again, won't you, 
Tom ? " said Blackman, in a spurt of good feeling. 

^'I don't know, Mr. Blackman. I must go home and 



FREE 315 

rest, and be sure I 'm alive, before I know what I shall 
do." 

Tom's uncle had been utterly surprised by the turn 
affairs had taken, for he had never really doubted Tom's 
guilt. Now he was, for the first time, almost effusive ; he 
gave himself credit that he had stood by his nephew. 

" We 'd like to have you back, Tom,'' he said ; " and you 
^d be a general favorite now." 

" I want to go home first, Unde Tom, and get the place 
out of debt, so mother and Barb '11 be easy in their minds. 
Then I don't know what I shall do. I don't feel as if I 
could ever come t© town again without fetching mother 
with me. But I can't tell j I want to get out of this town ; 
I hate the very sight of it. Come, Barb ; do let 's get off. 
Where 's the horse? I want to get home, where I won't 
see any more of this crowd, and where I can be alone with 
you and mother." 

Before they had made their way to the front door of the 
court-house the multitude outside had got firm hold of the 
fact of Tom's acquittal and the manner of it, and when he 
appeared they set up a shout ; then there were cheers and 
more cheers. But Tom only looked worried, and sought to 
extricate himself from the people who followed him. At 
length he managed to get away from the last of them. 

"You have n't ate anything to-day," said Janet, who 
clung to his hand and danced along by his side. " Come 
to our house to supper. I expect we 'U have warm bis- 
cuits and honey." 



310 THE ORATSOXS 

*' You dear little body ! ^ said Tom. " I can't stop for 
supper to-night, Janet ; I must go home with mother. I 
want to get out of the ugly town. I '11 come and see you 
sometimes, and I '11 have you out at the farm lots of times." 
He stopped to put his pale, trembling hand under her 
pretty chin j he turned her face up to his, he stooped and 
kissed her. But no entreaty could prevail on him to delay 
his departure. Not even the biscuits and honey on which 
Janet insisted. Hiram Mason helped him to hitch up old 
Blaze-face to the wagon. Then Tom turned to Hiram and 
grasped both his arms. 

" You 're going with us," he said abruptly. 

" Not to-night, Tom. I 'U come in a few days, when I 've 
finished my writing in the clerk's office. 1 11 stop on my 
way home." 

" I want to thank you, but I can't ; confound it," said Tom. 

" Never mind, Tom ; I 'm almost happier than you are." 

" I 'm not exactly happy, Mason," said Tom ; " I 've got 
that plaguey feeling of a rope around my neck yet. I can't 
get rid of it here in Moscow. Maybe out at the farm I shall 
be able to shake it off. Janet, won't you run into the house 
and tell mother and Barbara to come out quick — I want to 
get away." 

Tom had expected that Bob McCord would take a place 
in the wagon, but Bob was not so modest as to forego a 
public triumph. He first went and recovered the wagon- 
spoke from beneath the court-house steps, where he had 
hidden it the night before. This he put into the baggy 



FREE 317 

part of his "wamus,^' or hunting-jacket — the part above 
the belt into which he had often thrust prairie-chickens 
when he had no game-bag. Then he contrived to encounter 
Jake Hogan in the very thick of the crowd. 

" O Jake ! ^ he called, " what 's the price uh rope T How 's 
the hangin' business a-gittin' along these days? Doin' well 
at it, ain't yeht" 

" Wha' joo mean ! " asked Jake, as he half turned about 
and regarded Bob with big eyes. 

" Seems like 's ef you 'd ort to be 'n ole han' by this time, 
Jake. You sot the time f er Tom's funeral three deffer'nt 
nights: wunst you wuz a-goin' to have it over't Perrys- 
burg, un wunst the Sunday night that Pete Markham 
throwed you off the track weth that air yam about a wall- 
eyed man weth red whiskers, un wunst ag'iu las' night. 
Ev'ry time you sot it they wuz some sort uv a hitch ; it did 
n't seem to come off rightly. S'pose un you try yer hand 
on Dave Sovine awhile. They 's luck in a change." 

" I hain't had no han' in no hangings nor nuthin' uh that 
sort," snarled Jake. 

" You hain't t Jest you go un tell that out on Broad 
Run, sonny. Looky h-yer, Jake. I 've got the evidence agin 
you, un ef you dare me I '11 go afore the gran' jury weth it. 
I jest dare you to dare me, ef you dare." 

But Jake did not dare to dare him. He only moved 

slowly away toward his horse, the excited crowd surging 

after him, to his disgust. 

" Looky h-yer, Jake," Bob went on, following his retreat. 
27» 



318 THE GRAY SONS 

" I want to gin you some advice as a weU-wishin' friend on 
feller-citizen. Barb'ry knowed your v'ice las' nighty un 
BarVry Grayson hain't the sort uv a gal to stan' the sort 
uv foolin' 't you Ve been a-doin' about Tom.'' 

" Aw, you shet up yer jaw, now wonchoo t " said Jake. 

" I say, Jake," said McCord, still pursuing the crestfallen 
leader of Broad Run, while the crowd moved about Big 
Bob as a storm center. " I say there, Jake ; liker *n not 
Barb'ry '11 stay in town to-night un go afore the gran' 
jury to-niorry. Now ef I wuz you I 'd cPar the county 
this very identical night. Your ornery lantern-jawed face 
would n' look half 's han'some as Tom's in that air box in 
front uv the sher'f .'^ 

" You shet up ! " said Jake. 

"Come un shet me up, wonch yout" said Bob, rubbing 
his hands and laughing. 

Jake had reached his horse now, and without another 
word he mounted and rode away. But Bob kept walking 
about with his fists in his pockets, his big elbows protrud- 
ing, and his face radiant with mischief until SheriflE Plun- 
kett came out of the court-house. 

" I say, Sher'f," he called, " how many men 'd you say 
they wuz in that air fust mob!" 

" Nigh onto forty, I should think," said Plunkett ; " but 
of course I can't just exactly say." And he walked away, 
not liking to be catechised. There was something myste- 
rious about that mob, and he was afraid there might be 
something that would count in the next election. 



FREB 319 

" They had pistols, did n't they t" Bob continued, follow- 
ing him. 

" Yes, to be sure,'' said Plunkett, pausing irresolutely. 

"Now looky h-yer, Sher'f; I know sumpin about that 
air mob. They wuz n't but jest on'y two men in the whole 
thing. I don't say who they umz" ; and here Bob looked 
about on the crowd, which showed unmistakable signs of 
its relish for this revelation. 

" Un as fer pistols, they did have *em. I 've got one of 
'em h-yer." Bob here pulled the wagon-spoke from the 
depths of his hunting-shirt. " That 's one of the identical 
hoss-pistols that wuz p'inted at your head las' night. Felt 
kind-uh cold un creepy like, did n't it now, Hank Plunkett, 
when its muzzle was agin yer head, un it cocked, besides f 
Ha-al hal" 

The crowd jeered and joined in Bob's wild merriment. 

"I '11 have you arrested," said the sheriff severely. 
" You 've confessed enough now to make the grand jury 
indict you." 

"Fer whatt Fer savin' the life uv a innercent manf 
That 'd be a purty howdy-do, now would n't it t Un it 
would be a lovely story to tell at my trial, that the sher'f 
uv this yere county gin up his keys to two men, two lone- 
some men teeth on^y wagon-spoJces ! He-e! An' the wagon- 
spokes cocked! A wagon-spoke 's a mighty bad thing when 
it does go off, especially ef it 's loadened with buck-shot." 

Plunkett came close to McCord, and said in an under- 
tone loud enough to be heard by others: "Ah, Bob, I 



320 THE GBATSONS 

knowed it wuz your voice, un I knowed your grip. They 
ain't any other man in this county that can put me down 
the way you did las' night. But don't you tell Jake ur 
any of his crowd about it"; and he winked knowingly 
at Bob. 

" Aw, go to thunder, now ! " said Bob, speaking loudly 
and not to be cajoled into giving up his fun. " Sher'f, you 
can't come no gum games on me. By jeementley crickets, 
you wuz skeered, un that *s all they is about it. You 
wilted so 't I wuz afeerd you 'd clean faint away afore 
I could git out uv yeh where the keys wuz. Why did n't 
you hide Tom summers! You wuz afeerd Broad Run 'd 
vote agin you, un you as good as tole Jake Hogan ut 
you would n' make no trouble when he come to lynch 
Tom." 
" No, I did n't ; I did n't have anything to say to Jake." 
" Ef you take my case afore the gran' jury un I 'm tried, 
I '11 prove it on yeh. Now, Hank Plunkett, they 's two 
things that '11 never happen." Here Bob smote his right 
fist into his left palm. " One is 't you '11 ever fetch my 
case afore the gran' jury. That 's as shore 's you 're bom. 
T' other is that you '11 ever be elected ag'in ! Wha 'd joo 
turn off Pete Markham fert Fer tryin' to save Tom, un 
to please Broad Run. Now you 're come up weth, ole boss. 
Markham 11 be the nex' sher'f. You jest cut a notch in a 
stick to remember 't Big Bob McCord tole you so. Ef 't 
had n' been fer me 'n' Abe Lincoln you 'n' Jake, 'twext and 
'tween yeh, 'd 'a' hung the wrong feller. Now I jest want 



FEES 321 

to see yon fetch me afore the court wunst. Ef yon pester 
me too much, I 'm demed 'f I don't go thar on m' own 
hook." 

"You 've been drinking, Bob," said Plunkett, as he 
hurried away ; but the people evidently sided with McCord, 
whose exploit of mobbing the sheriff almost single-handed 
had made him more than ever the champion of the county. 

That night Jake Hogan, afraid of arrest, succeeded in 
trading his cabin, with the front door still unhinged, and 
his little patch of rugged ground for a one-horse wagon 
and some provisions. Over the wagon he stretched his 
only two bed-sheets of unbleached domestic for covering. 
Before noon the next day, he had passed safely out of the 
county. The raw-boned horse, the rickety wagon, the 
impoverished and unwilling cow tied behind, the two 
yellow mongrel pups between the wagon-wheels, and the 
frowsy-headed wife alongside of him were token enough to 
every experienced eye that here was a poor whitey on his 
travels. To all inquiries regarding his destination, Jake 
returned : 

" I 'm boun' f er Messoxm, Yeh see they hain't no kind 
of a chance fer a poor man in this yer daudrautted 
Eelinoys country .'' 

Once an example of migration had been set, his neigh- 
bors grew restless also, and in a year or two nearly all of 
them had obeyed their hereditary instinct and followed 
him to Pike County in Missouri. The most of the Broad 
Bun neighborhood is now included in a great grazing 



322 



THE GRATSONS 



farm ; here a few logs, there some tumble-down ruins of a 
stick-chimney, and in another place a rough stone hearth, 
only remain to indicate the resting-place for a few years 
of a half -nomadic clan, whose members or their descend- 
ants are by this time engaged, probably, in helping to rid 
the Pacific coast of its unchristian Chinese. 




XXIX 

THE CLOSE or A CAREEE 

f AVE SOVINE'S paHial confession, which had 
1 served to acquit Tom, was sufflcient at the 
next term of the court to condemn him, for 
[ no plea of accidental shooting could save him 
after be had tried to escape at the expense of another 
man's life. Daring his trial the motive for shooting Lock- 
wood remained an inexplicable mystery. But when ouce 
Dave was convinced that his execution was inevitable and 
there was an end to all the delights of deviltry, he pro- 
ceeded to play the only card remaining ia his hand, and to 
euchre Justice on her own deal. Like other murderers of 
his kind he became religious, and nothing could be more 
encouraging to criminals than the clearness and fervor of 
his religious experience, and his absolute certainty of the 
rewards of paradise. His superiority in wickedness had 
made him the hero of all the green goslings of the village ; 
his tardy conversion and shining professions made him an 
object of philanthropic interest to sentimental people and 
gave him the consolations of conspicuity to the last. 



324 THE GEAFSOXS 

It was during this lurid sunset period of his unnecessary 
existence that Dave made confessions. These were not 
always consistent one with another ; the capacity for sim- 
ple and direct truth-telling is a talent denied to men of 
Sovine's stamp, nor can it be developed in a brief season of 
penitence. It is quite probable that Sovine failed to state 
the exact truth even when narrating his religious experi- 
ences. But by a comparison of his stories, with some 
elimination of contradictory elements, the main facts re- 
garding the death of George Lockwood were made out 
with passable clearness. Being of a thrifty turn of mind, 
Lockwood had, by a series of careful observations, detected 
one of the principal tricks employed by Dave to win the 
money of the unwary. It had been Lockwood's purpose to 
play tlie trick back on Dave at some favorable opportunity, 
but this he found quite impossible. To bring himself to 
Dave's proficiency in manipulation no end of assiduous 
practice would be needful. There remained one other way 
in which he might utilize his discovery. It was an estab- 
lished rule in that part of the country that he who detected 
his opponent in the very act of cheating at cards might 
carry off the stakes. 

When Lockwood went to the camp-meeting he put into 
his pocket a bit of caudle, in order to have a game with 
Dave ; and when on encountering him Dave proposed the 
game, the two went out into the woods, remote from the 
meeting, Lockwood lighted his candle and they sat down 
on a log to play. Lockwood won at first and doubled the 



THE CLOSE OF A CAREER 325 

stakes at every game, until Dave, seeing that his pocket- 
money was running short, and the candle fast wasting in 
the breezes, concluded to sweep in the stakes with his 
favorite trick. Gteorge Lockwood exposed the cheat at 
the very instant, and put the stakes in his pocket. But 
Dave had received his education in its higher branches 
in the South-west of half a century ago, and he had 
no notion of suffering himself to be bankrupted so 
easily. He drew his pistol and demanded the stakes, 
following Lockwood with reiterated threats, until, in a 
moment of exasperation, he shot him. A crowd came 
quickly at the sound of the pistol, and Dave had the 
shrewdness not to run away and not to attempt to take 
any money from George Lockwood's person. Remember- 
ing Tom Grayson's threats, he declared, with his usual 
alertness in mendacity, that he had seen Grayson do the 
shooting, and thus diverted attention from himself. 

He had no further thought at the time than to get out of 
a present difficulty ; it was his purpose to leave the country 
before the trial should come on. But he found himself 
watched, and he imagined that he was suspected. He saw 
no chance to move without making sure of his own arrest ; 
he became alarmed and unfitted for decision by the sense 
of his peril ; as the trial approached, his nerves, shaken by 
dissipations, were unstrung by the debate within him. He 
saw ghosts at night and his sleep almost entirely forsook 
him. This horror of a doom that seemed perpetually to 
hang over him was greatly enhanced by the cross-examina- 
28 



326 



THE GRAT80N8 



tion to which he was subjected; from the first he mis- 
doubted that Lincoln had penetrated his whole secret and 
possessed the means of making it known. And when he 
heard himself charged publicly with the murder and as 
publicly arrested, he believed that some evidence against 
him had been found ; he did not draw the line between the 
charge and the proof, and the half confession escaped him 
in the first breakdown produced by sudden despair. 

But at the last he spoke edifyingly from the scaffold, and 
died with as much composure and more self-complacency 
than Tom would have shown had he fallen a victim to 
Dave's rascality. What becomes of such men in another 
world is none of my business. But I am rather pleased to 
have them depart., be it to paradise, or purgatory, or limbo, 
or any other compartment of the world of spirits. In some 
moods I could even wish them a prosperous voyage to the 
Gehenna of our forefathers, now somewhat obsolescent, if 
only they would begone and cease to vex this rogue-ridden 
little world of ours. 



XXX 



TOM AND RACHEL 




HEN Tom rode home from the trial with his 
mother and Barbara, his emotions were not 
just what one might expect; the events of 
the day and the tremendous strain on his 
nerves had benumbed him. He was only conscious that it 
gave him a great pleasure to leave the village behind, and 
to get once more upon the open prairie, which was glorified 
by the tints and shadows of the setting sun. The fields of 
maize, with their tassels growing brown and already too 
ripe and stiff to wave freely, and with their long blades 
becoming harsh and dry, so that the summer rustle had 
changed to a characteristic autumnal rattling, seemed to 
greet him like old friends who had visibly aged in his 
absence. Tom found his mind, from sheer strain and 
weariness, fixing itself on unimportant things; he noted 
that the corn-silk which protruded from the shucks was 
black, and that the shucks themselves were taking on that 
sear look which is the sure token of the ripeness of the ear 
within the envelope. Now and then he marked an ear that 



807 



328 THE GRAYS0N8 

had grown so loDg as to pash its nose of cob quite beyond 
the envelope. The stretches of prairie grass showed a mix- 
ture of green and brown; the September rains had fresh- 
ened a part of the herbage, giving it a new verdure, but 
the riper stalks and blades had maintained their neutral 
colors. These things interested Tom in a general way, as 
marking the peaceful changes that had taken place in the 
familiar face of nature during his period of incarceration. 
What he felt in regarding these trifles was simply that he 
was alive and once more free to go where he pleased. He 
said little, and replied to the remarks of his mother and 
Barbara briefly, and he drove old Blaze-face at a speed 
quite unbecoming a horse at his time of life. The people 
whom he passed cheered him, or called out their well-meant 
congratulation, or their bitter remarks about Dave Sovine, 
but Tom on his part was not demonstrative; he even drove 
past Rachel Albaugh and her brother Ike with only a nod 
of recognition. To any remark of his mother and Barbara 
about Dave's villainy, and to any allusion to the case, he 
returned the briefest answers, giving the impression that 
he wished to get mentally as well as physically away from 
the subject. When he got home he asked for an old- 
fashioned country hoe-cake for supper, and he would have 
the table set out on the kitchen porch; he said it seemed so 
delightful to be permitted to go out-of-doors again. After 
supper he turned old Blaze into the pasture, with a notion 
that he too might prefer his liberty. 
In reflecting on the events of the day, Barbara remem- 



TOM AND RACHEL 329 

bered with pleasure that Rachel had congratulated Tom. 
It made his vindication complete that the young woman 
who had refused his attentions when he was accused of 
nothing worse than foolish gambling had now taken pains 
to show her good- will in public. But when the question of 
a possible renewal of the relations between Tom and his 
old sweetheart came up in Barbara's mind, there was 
always a doubt. Not that there was anything objection- 
able about Rachel Albaugh. Barbara said to her mother 
over and over again, in the days that followed Tom's 
acquittal, that there was nothing against Rachel. If 
Rachel was not very industrious she was certainly " easy- 
tempered.'' In her favor it could be said that she had a 
beautiful face, and that she would be joint heiress with her 
brother to a large and well-improved prairie farm, to say 
nothing of her father's tract of timber-land. 

After a while Barbara came to wish that Tom's old affec- 
tion for Rachel might be kindled again. She did not like 
to see him so changed. He plodded incessantly at farm 
work, and he seemed to have lost his relish for society. If 
any one came to the house, he managed to have business 
abroad. He was not precisely gloomy, but the change in 
him was so marked that it made his sister unhappy. 

"Why don't you go to see Rachel!" she asked, a week 
after the trial. Barbara was straining her eyes down the 
road, as she often did in those days. " Rachel would be 
glad to see you again, Tom, like as not." 

" Maybe she would," answered Tom, as he picked up the 
28* 



330 THE GRATSOXS 

pail and started to the spring for water by way of cutting 
oflP all further talk on the question. 

The days went by without Tom^s showing by any sign 
that he cared to see Rachel, and to Barbara's grief the days 
went by without Hiram Mason's promised arrival at the 
Graysons'. But there came presently ^ note from Hiram 
to Barbara, saying that he had been detained by the neces- 
sity he was under of finishing Magill's writing, and by the 
difficulty he found in getting his pay from the easy-going 
clerk for what he had done. But he hoped to stop on his 
way home in three or four days. This note was brought 
from Moscow by Bob McCord, who also brought Janet. 
The child had teased her father into letting her come out 
in Aunt Martha's wagon with Bob, whom she had seen 
driving past the house on his way in. 

Janet spent her time in the country wholly with Tom. 
She followed him afield, she climbed with him into the 
barn lofts, she sat on the back of old Blaze when Tom led 
him to water, she went into the forest when Tom went to 
fell trees for fire-wood, she helped him to pick apples, and 
she was as happy in all this as she would have been in the 
Elysian Fields. 

" Cousin Tom," she said, the day after her arrival, as she 
leaned out of the high, open window of the hay-loft, 
" yonder 's a lady getting down on the horse-block at the 
house." 

Tom climbed up from the threshing-floor to the mow, 
and, standing well back out of sight in the gloom of the 



TOM AND RACHEL 331 

loft, he recognized Rachel Albaugh's horse. Then he went 
back again to his wheat-fanning on the threshing-floor. 

" Are n't you going to go and help her t " said Janet, 
when Tom stopped the noisy fanning-mill to shovel back 
the wheat and to rake away the cheat. 

" Pshaw ! ^ said Tom. "A country girl does n't need any 
help to get off a horse." 

Rachel had come to call on Barbara, nor did she admit 
to herself that her visit had anything to do with Tom. 
But she found herself in an attitude to which she was 
unaccustomed. From the moment that Tom had been 
charged with murder her liking for him increased. The 
question of his guilt or innocence did not disturb her — 
except in so far as it jeoparded his life ; he was at least a 
dashing fellow, out of the common run. And now that he 
had been acquitted, and was a hero of everybody, Rachel 
found in herself a passion that was greater than her 
vanity, and that overmastered even her prudence. She 
was tormented by her thoughts of Tom in the day, she 
dreamed of him at night. Tom would not come to her, 
and she felt herself at length drawn by a force she could 
not resist to go to him. 

Barbara asked Rachel to stay to dinner, and promised 
that Tom would put away her horse as soon as he knew 
that she had come. This was but the common hospitality 
of the country, but Barbara hoped that Rachel's presence 
might evoke Tom's old buoyant self again. And so, while 
Barbara sat on the loom-bench weaving a web of striped 



332 THE 0RAT80NS 

linsey, Rachel sat near her, knitting. It appeared to Bar- 
bara that Rachel had undergone almost as great a change 
as Tom. She had lost her taciturnity. Her tongue kept 
pace with the click of her needles. She only broke the 
thread of her talk when she paused to take the end of one 
needle out of the quill of her knitting-case and put another 
in. Under color of sympathy for the Graysons in their 
troubles she talked of what was in her mind. How dread- 
ful it must have been for Tom to be in jail ! How anxious 
he must have been at the trial! How well he bore up 
under it all ! How proud he must have been when he was 
acquitted ! These and such remarks were web and woof of 
her talk, while Barbara was throwing her nimble shuttle to 
and fro and driving the threads home with the double-beat 
of her loom-comb. 

By half-past 11 the early farm dinner was almost ready, 
and Mrs. Grayson blew a blast on the tin horn which hung 
outside of the door, to let Tom and Janet know that they 
were to come in. 

When Tom heard the horn he went and led Rachel's 
horse to the stable, after perching Janet in the saddle ; and 
then he delayed long enough to shuck out and give him 
eight or ten ears of corn. After this he came to the house 
and washed his hands and face in the country way, with 
much splash and spatter, in a basin that sat on a bench 
outside of the door, and Janet washed hers, imitating to 
the best of her ability Tom's splattering way of dashing 
the water about. Then the two used the towel that hung 



TOM AND RACHEL 333 

on a roller in the kitchen porch, and Tom entered the 
kitchen with his clothes soiled by labor and with that look 
of healthful fatigue which comes of plentiful exercise in 
the open air. 

" Howdy, Rachel f All well 't your house t ^ This was 
the almost invariable formula of country politeness, and 
it was accompanied by a faint smile of welcome and a 
grasp of her hand. 

"Howdy, Tomt'' said Rachel, cordially. "I hope you 
are well." Rachel regarded him a moment, and then let 
her eyes droop. Had Rachel discovered that her face was 
at its best when her long eyelashes were lowered in this 
fashion, or was the action merely instinctive T 

" Oh, so-so I ^ answered Tom, uneasily, as he seated him- 
self with the rest at the table. Rachel sat next to him, and 
he treated her with hospitable politeness, but she looked in 
vain for any sign of his old affection. She hardly once 
fairly encountered his eye during the meal. He seemed 
more indifferent to her attractions than she had ever 
known any man, old or young, to be. And yet she knew 
that her charms had lost nothing of their completeness. 
That very morning she had gone into the rarely opened 
Albaugh parlor and examined herself in the largest look- 
ing-glass in the house — the one that hung between the 
parlor windows, and that had a print of Mount Vernon in 
the upper panel of the space inclosed between the turned 
frames. Her fresh and yet delicate complexion was with- 
out a speck or flaw, her large eyes were as lustrous as ever. 



334 THE GRATSOSS 

and there was the same exquisite symmetry and harmony 
of features that had made her a vision of loveliness to 
so many men. But Tom seemed more interested in his 
cousin, whom he kept laughing with a little childish by- 
play while talking to his sister's guest. Kachel felt herself 
baffled, and by degrees, though treated cordially, she 
began to feel humiliated. When dinner was finished by a 
course of pumpkin pie and quince preserves served with 
cream, Tom pushed back his chair and explained that he 
was just going to begin building some rail pens to hold the 
corn when it should be gathered and shucked, and that he 
could not allow himself the usual noon-time rest. The 
days were getting so short, you know. Would Rachel 
excuse him? Barbara would blow the horn so that he 
could put the saddle on Rachel's horse when she wanted it. 
But would n't she stay to supper f 

Rachel declined to stay to supper, and she was visibly 
less animated after dinner than she had been before. The 
conversation flagged on both sides ; Barbara became pre- 
occupied with her winding-blades, her bobbins, and her 
shuttle, while Rachel was absorbed in turning the heel of 
her stocking. By half-past 1 o'clock the guest felt bound 
to go home J the days were getting shorter and there was 
much to be done at home, she remembered. The horn was 
blown, and Tom led her horse out to the block and helped 
her to mount. As he held her stirrup for her to place her 
foot, it brought to his memory, with a rush, her refusal to 
let him ride home with her from the Timber Creek school- 



TOM AND RACHEL 335 

house after the " singing.'^ When he looked up he saw 
that Rachel's mind had followed the same line of associa- 
tion ; both of them colored at this manifest encounter of 
their thoughts. 

" I suppose I ought n't to have said * no' that day at the 
school-house." Rachel spoke with feeling, moved more by 
the desperate desire she felt to draw Tom out than by any 
calculation in making the remark. 

" Yes, you ought," said Tom. " I never blamed you." 

Then there was an awkward pause. 

"Good-bye, Tom," said Rachel, extending her hand. 
"Won't you come over and see us sometime!" 

" I 'm generally too tired when night comes. Good-bye, 
Rachel"; and he took her hand in a friendly way. But 
tWs was one of those farewells that are aggravated by 
mental contrast, and Rachel felt, as she looked at Tom's 
serious and preoccupied face, that it was to her the end of 
a chapter. 

Tom started up the pathway toward the house, but 
stopped half-way and plucked a ripe seed-pod from the top 
of a poppy-stalk, and rubbed it out between his two hands 
as he looked a little regretfully after Rachel until she dis- 
appeared over the hill. Then he turned and saw Barbara 
standing on the porch regarding him inquiringly. 

" You are n't like yourself any more, Tom," she said. 

" I know that," he answered, meditatively, at the same 
time filliping the minute poppy-seeds away, half a dozen 
at a time, with his thumb. " I don't seem to be the same 



336 THE GBATSONS 

fellow that I was three months ago. Then I 'd 'a' followed 
Rachel like a dog every step of the way home.'' 

" She 's awfully in lo . e with you, poor girl.'' 

" Oh ! she'll get over that, I suppose. She 's been in love 
before." 

" And you don't care for her any more t " 

''I don't seem to care for anything that I used to care for. 
I would n't like to be what I used to be." 

This sentence was rather obscure, and Barbara still 
looked at Tom inquiringly and waited for him to explain. 
But he only went on in the same inconsequential way, as 
he plucked and rubbed out another poppy-head. " I don't 
care for anjrthing nowadays, but just to stay with you and 
mother. When a fellow 's been through what I have, I 
suppose he is n't ever the same that he was ; it takes the 
ambition out of you. Hanging makes an awful change in 
your feelings, you know " ; and he smiled grimly. 

" Don't say that ; you make me shiver," said Barbara. 

" But I say, Barb," and with this Tom sowed broadcast 
all the poppy-seed in his hand, "yonder comes somebody 
over the hill that'll get a warmer welcome than Rachel did, 
I '11 guarantee." 

How often in the last week had Barbara looked to see if 
somebody were not coming over the hill ! Now she found 
her vision obstructed by a " laylock " bush, and she came 
down the path to where her brother stood. As soon as she 
had made out that the pedestrian was certainly Hiram 
Mason, she turned and went into the house, to change her 



TOM AND RACHEL 



337 



apron for a fresher one, and with an instinctive wish to 
hide from Mason a part of the eagerness she had felt for 
his coming. But when he had reacned the gate and was 
having his hand cordially shaken by Tom, Barbara came 
back to the door to greet him ; and just because she could 
n't help it, she went out on the porch, then down the steps 
and half-way to the gate to tell him how glad she was to 
see him. 



29 



XXXI 

HIRAM AND BARBARA 




XTTK cordiality of his welcome was a surprise to 

T^^S ^f*^*'"i ^'^ could hardly tell why. The days 
^Jh liiid dragged heavily since his separation from 
! BiLrbara, and his mind had heen filled with 
doubts. The delay imposed upon him by Barbara's cir- 
cumstances and then by his own was unwholesome; love 
long restrained from utterance is apt to make the soul 
sick. During his last week in Moscow he had copied court 
minutes and other documents into the folio records in an 
abstracted fashion, while the conscions part of his intellect 
was debating his chance of securing Barbara's consent. 
He fancied that she might hold herself more than ever 
aloof from him now; that her pride had been too deeply 
wounded to recover, and that she would never bring heraelf 
to accept him. 

When he had at length finished all there was for him to 
do in the clerk's ofBce at Moscow, and Magill had contrived 
to Imrrow enough money to pay him his fifty cents a day, 
Mason was too impatient to wait for some wagon boimd 



HIRAM AND BABBABA 339 

for the Timber Creek neighborhood. He started on foot, 
intending to pass the night under the friendly roof of the 
Graysons, and to push on homeward in the morning; for 
he would already be a month late in beginning his college 
year. His mind was revolving the plan of his campaign 
against Barbara's pride all the way over the great lonely 
level prairie, the vista of which stretched away to the west 
until it was interrupted by a column of ominous black 
smoke, which told of the beginning of the autumnal prairie 
fires that annually sweep the great grassy plains and keep 
them free of trees. At length the tantalizing forest, so 
long in sight, was reached, and he entered the pale fringe 
of slender poplar-trees — that forlorn hope thrown out by 
the forest in its perpetual attempt to encroach on a 
prairie annually fire-swept. But when at last he entered 
the greater forest itself, now half denuded of its shade, 
the problem was still before him. He contrived with 
much travail of mind what seemed to him an ingenious 
device for overcoming Barbara's fear of his family. He 
would propose that his mother should write her a letter 
giving a hearty assent to his proposal of marriage. If 
that failed, he could not think of any other plan likely to 
be effective. 

Like many conversations planned in absence, this one 
did not seem so good when he had the chance to test it. 
The way in which Tom welcomed him at the gate, shaking 
his hand and taking hold of his arm in an affectionate, 
informal way, gave him an unexpected pleasure, though 



340 THE 0BJYS0N8 

nothing could be more natural under the circumstances 
thau Tom's gratitude. And when Tom said, '^ Barbara 11 
be awful glad to see you, an' so 'U Mother," Mason was 
again surprised. Not that he knew any good reason why 
Barbara and her mother should not be glad to see him, but 
he who broods long over his feelings will hatch forebod- 
ings. When Hiram looked up from Tom at the gate, he 
saw Barbara's half-petite figure and piquant face, full as 
ever of force and aspiration, waiting half-way down the 
walk. Barbara paused there, half-way to the gate, but she 
could not wait even there ; she came on down farther and 
met him, and looked in his eyes frankly and told him — 
with some reserve in her tone, it is true, but with real cor- 
diality — that she was glad to see him. And by the time 
he reached the porch, Mother Grayson herself — kindly, 
old-fashioned soul that she was — stood in the door and 
greeted Mason with tears in her eyes. 

After a little rest and friendly talk in the cool, weU-kept, 
home-like sitting-room, Hiram went out with Tom to look 
about the familiar place. The fruit trees were pretty well 
stripped of their foliage by a recent wind and the ground 
was carpeted with brown and red and yellow leaves, while 
the rich autumn sunlight, which but half warmed the 
atmosphere, gave one an impression of transientness and 
of swift-impending change. It was one of those days on 
which the seasons are for the instant arrested — a little 
moment of repose and respite before the inevitable catas- 



HIBAM AND BARBARA 341 

trophe. The busiest man can hardly resist the influence of 
such a day ; farmers are prone to bask in the slant sunlight 
at such times and to talk to one another over line-fences or 
seated on top-rails. The crows fly hither and thither in the 
still air, and the swallows, gathered in noisy concourse, 
seem reluctant to set out upon their southward journey. 
But Mason soon left Tom and entered the kitchen, where 
he sat himself down upon a bench over against the loom 
and watched the swift going to and fro of Barbara's nim- 
ble shuttle, and listened to the muffled pounding of the 
loom-comb, presently finding a way to make himself useful 
by winding bobbins. 

The two were left alone at intervals during the after- 
noon, but Mason could not summon courage to reopen the 
question so long closed between them. His awkward 
reserve reacted on Barbara, and conversation between 
them became difficult, neither being able to account for 
the mood of the other. 

After a while Janet, tired with following Tom the live- 
long day, came into the kitchen and besought Barbara to 
sing "that song about Dick, you know"; and though 
Mason did not know who Dick might be, he thought he 
would rather hear Barbara sing than to go on trying to 
keep up a flagging conversation; so he seconded Janet's 
request. When Barbara had tied a broken string in the 
" harness ^ of the loom, she resumed her seat on the bench 
and sang while she wove. 



29» 



342 THE QBAY80N8 

BARBARA'S WEAVING SONG. 

Fly, shattle, right merrily, merrily, 

Carry the swif t-nmning thread ; 
Keep time to the fancy that eagerly 

Weaveth a web in my head. 

For Dick he will come again, come again^ 
Dick he will come again home from afar 

With musket and powder-horn. 
Musket and powder-horn, home from the war. 

Beat up the threads lustily, lustily, 

Weave me a web good and strong; 
Heart brimful and flowing with joyousness 

Ever is bursting with song. 

For Dick he will come again, etc. 

Warp, hold the woof lovingly, lovingly, 

Taking and holding it fast; 
Hearts bound together in unity 

Love with a love that will last. 

For Dick he will come again, come again, ' 
Dick be will come again home from afar 

With musket and powder-horn. 
Musket and powder-horn, home from the war. 

By the time the ditty was ended, Mrs. Grayson was set- 
ting the snpper-tablo by thd fire-place, doing her best to 
honor her guest. She took down the long-handled waffle- 
irons and made a plate of those delicious cates unknown 
since kitchen fire-places went out, and the like of which 
will perhaps never be known again henceforth. She got 



HIBAM AND BARBARA 343 

out some of the apple-butter, of which half a barrel had 
been made so toilsomely but the week before, and this she 
flanked with a dish of her peach preserves, kept sacredly 
for days of state. The " chaney " cups and saucers were 
also set out in honor of Hiram, and the almost transparent 
preserved peaches were eaten with country cream, from 
saucers thin enough to show an opalescent translucency, 
and decorated with a gilt band and delicate little flowers. 
This china, which had survived the long wagon-joumey 
from Maryland, was not often trusted upon the table. 

" My ! What a nice supper we Ve got, Aunt Marthy ! " 
said Janet, clapping her hands, as they took their seats at 
the table. 

" It seems to me you 're making company out of me,'' 
said Mason, in a tone of protest. 

"We sha'n't have you again soon, Mason," said Tom, 
" and we don't often see the like of you." 

The words were spontaneous, but Tom ducked his head 
with a half -ashamed air when he had spoken them. Bar- 
bara liked Tom's little speech: it expressed feelings that 
she could not venture to utter ; and it had, besides, a touch 
of Tom's old gayety of feeling in it. 

When supper was well out of the way Hiram proposed 
a walk with Barbara, but it did no good. They talked 
mechanically about what they were not thinking about, 
and by the time they got back to the house Mason was 
becoming desperate. He must leave in the morning very 
early, and he had made no progress ] he could not bring 



344 THE GBAY80N8 

himself to approach the subject aboat which Barbara 
seemed so loath to speak, and concerning which he dreaded 
a rebuff as he dreaded death. 

They entered the old kitchen and found no one there ; 
the embers were flickering in the spacious fire-place and 
peopling the room with grotesque shadows and dancing 
lights. 

" Let us sit here awhile, Barbara," he said, with a strange 
note of entreaty in his tone, as he swung the heavy door 
shut and put down the wooden latch — relic of the pioneer 
period. 

'* Just as you please, Mr. Mason," answered Barbara. 

" Oh ! say Hiramy won't you T " He said this with a touch 
of impatience. 

" Hiram ! " said Barbara, laughing. 

He led her to the loom-bench. 

" Sit there on high, as you did the night you put me into 
a state of misery from which I have n't escaped yet. There, 
put your feet on the chair-rung, as you did that night." 
He spoke with peremptoriness, as he placed a chair for her 
feet, so that she might sit with her back to the loom. Then 
he drew up another shuck-bottomed chair in such a way as 
to sit beside and yet half facing her, but lower. 

" Now," he said, doggedly, " we can finish the talk we had 
then." 

"That seems ages ago," said Barbara, dreamily; "so 
much has happened since." 

" So long ago that you don't care to renew the subject T " 



HIBAM AND BARBARA 345 

"I:— » But Barbara stopped short. The feeble blaze in 
the fire-place suddenly went out. 

Hiram did not know where to begin. He got up and 
took some dry chips from a basket and threw them on the 
slumbering coals, so as to set the flame a-going again. 
Then he sat down in his chair and looked up at the now 
silent Barbara, and tried in vain to guess her mood. But 
she remained silent and waited for him to take the lead. 

" Do you remember what you said then t " he asked. 

" No ! how can It It seems so long ago." 

" You said a pack of nonsense." As he blurted out this 
charge Mason turned his head round obliquely, still regard- 
ing Barbara. 

" Did IT That 's just like me," Barbara answered, with 
a little laugh. 

" No, it is n't like you," he replied, almost rudely. ** You 
're the most sensible woman I ever knew, except on one 
subject." 

" What 's that T " Barbara was startled by the vehemence 
and abruptness of his speech, and she asked this in a half- 
frightened voice. 

" Your pride. I looked up to you then, as I do now. 
You 're something above me — I just worship you." To a 
man of maturity this sort of talk seems extravagant 
enough. But one must let youth paint itself as it will, 
with all its follies on its head. You Ve said sillier things 
than that in your time, sober reader — you know you 
have! 



340 THE QBAT80N8 

"I do just worship you, Barbara Grayson," Hiram went 
on ; '^ but you talked a parcel of fool stuff that night about 
the superiority of my family, and about your not being 
able to bear it that my people should look down on you, 
and — well, a pack of tomfoolery; that 's what it was, Bar- 
bara, and there 's no use of calling it anything else." 

Barbara was silent. 

" Now, I 'm not going to give you a chance to make any 
more such speeches. But I want to ask you whether, if I 
should send you a letter from my mother when I get home, 
and maybe from my sisters too, after I have told them the 
whole truth, urging you to accept me and become one of 
our family — I want to know whether, then, you would be 
willing ; whether you 'd take pity on a poor fellow who 
can't get along without you. Would that suit youT" 

"No, it would n't," said Barbara, looking at the now 
blazing chips in the flre-place with her head bent forward. 

"Well, what on earth wo wW, then!" And Mason tilted 
back his chair in the nervousness of desperation and 
brought his eyes to a focus on her face, which was 
strangely illuminated in the flickering foot-lights from 
the hearth. 

" Did I talk that way last summer T" 

" Yes, you did." 

" It must have hurt you. I can see it hurt you, from the 
way you speak about it." 

" Yes," said Mason ; " I Ve been in a sort of purgatory 
ever since." 



HIBAM AND BARBARA 347 

" And I did n't mean to hurt your feelings. I 'd rather 
do anything than to hurt your feelings." Here she paused, 
unable to proceed at once, but he waited for her to show 
the way. Presently she went on : 

"Now, Mr. Mason, — Hiram, I mean, — I 'm going to 
punish myself for my foolish pride. I must have felt very 
differently then to what I do now. The more I have seen 
of you the more I have — admired you." Barbara stopped 
and took up the hem of her apron and picked at the 
stitches as though she would ravel them. Then she pro- 
ceeded, dropping her head lower, " Somehow I hate to say 
it, — but I 'm going to punish myself, — the more I have 
seen of you the more I have — liked you. It don't matter 
much to me now whether your mother likes me or not, and 
I really don't seem to care what your sisters think about 
your loving a poor girl from the country." 

" Hush ! Don't talk that way about yourself," said Hiram. 
But Barbara was so intent on finishing what she had re- 
solved to say that she did not give any heed to him, but 
only went on pulling and picking at the hem of her apron. 

" I only want to know one thing, Mr. Mason, and that is 
whether you — whether you really and truly want met" 
Her face blushed deeply, she caught her breath, her head 
bowed lower than before, as though trying in vain to 
escape from Hiram's steadfast gaze. 

"God only knows how I do love you, Barbara," said 
Hiram, speaking softly now and letting his eyes rest on 
the floor. 



348 



TEE GBAYS0N8 



^^ Welly" said Barbara, ^^ as good a man as you deserves 
to have what he wants, you know " ; and here she smiled 
faintly. '^I 11 put in the dust all the wicked pride that 
hurts you so." And Barbara made a little gesture. Then 
after a moment she began again, stammeringly, ''If — if 
you really want me, Hiram Mason, — why — then — I 11 
face anything rather than miss of being yours. Now will 
that dot And will you forgive me for keeping you in 
purgatory, as you call it, all this time t " There were tears 
in her eyes as she spoke ; partly of penitence, perhaps, but 
more than half of happiness. 

When she had finished, Mason got up and pushed his 
chair away and came and sat down on the loom-bench 
beside her, Barbara making room for him, as for the first 
time she lifted her eyes timidly to his. 

"I Ve been a goose, Barbara, not to understand you 
before. What a woman you are 1 " 




XXXII 

THE NEXT MORNING 

iBffiN Tom waked up the next morning in the 
gray daybreak, he found that Mason, who 
should have shared his room, had not come 
to bed at all. And when Tom came down to 
uncover the live coals and build up the kitchen fire, he 
found that the embers had not been covered under the 
ashes as usual ; there were instead smoking sticks of wood 
that had newly burned in two, the ends having canted 
over backward outside of the andirons. The table stood in 
the floor set with plates and cups and saucers for two, and 
there were the remains of an early breakfast. There was 
still heat in the coffee-pot when Tom touched it, and from 
these signs he read the story of Barbara's betrothal to 
Mason ; he conjectured that this interview, which was to 
precede a separation of many months, had been uninten- 
tionally protracted until it was near the time for Mason's 
departure. The d6bris of the farewell love-feast, eaten in the 
silent hour before daybreak, seemed to have associations of 
sentiment. Tom regarded these things and was touched 

30 840 



350 THE GBAYS0X8 

and pleased, but he was also amused. This sitting the night 
out seemed an odd freak for a couple so tremendously seri- 
ous and proper as the little sister and the school-master. 

An hour later, when Tom, having finished his chores, 
came in for his breakfast, Barbara had reappeared below 
stairs with an expression of countenance so demure — so 
entirely innocent and unconscious — that Tom could not 
long keep his gravity; before he had fairly begun to eat 
ho broke into a merry, boyish laugh. 

^' What are you laughing about 7 " demanded Barbara^ 
looking a little foolish and manifesting a rising irritation, 
that showed how well she knew the cause of his amusement. 

"Oh! nothing; but why don't you eat your breakfast. 
Barb f Yon seem to have lost your appetite.'* 

" Don't tease Barb'ry now," said Mrs. Grayson. 

" I 'm not teasing," said Tom ; " but I declare, Barb, it 
must have seemed jnst like going to housekeeping when 
you two sat down to eat breakfast by yourselves this 
morning." 

" O Tom ! " broke in Janet, who could n't quite catch the 
drift of the conversation, " Barbara went to bed with her 
clothes on last night. When I waked np this morning she 
was lying on the bed by me with her dress on." 

Tom now laughed in his old unrestrained fashion. 

" Say, Barbara," Janet went on, " are you going to marry 
that Mr. Mason that was here yesterday?" 

Knowing that she could not get rid of Janet's inquiries 
except by answering, Barbara said : " Oh, I suppose so," as 



^ 



THE NEXT MORNING 351 

she got up to set the pot of coflfee back on the trivet and 
hide a vexation that she knew to be foolish. 

" Don't you know whether you 're going to marry him or 
notf put in Janet. **I sh'd think you 'd know. And I 
sh'd think he 'd be a real nice husband." Then after a few 
moments of silence, Janet turned on Tom. " Tom, who 's 
your sweetheart t " 

" Have n't got any," said Tom. 

"Is n't that purty girl that was here yesterday your 
sweetheart t " 

"No!" 

"Are n't you ever going to get married!" 

" Maybe, some day. Not right oflf, though." 

" I wish you would find a good wife, Tom," said Barbara 
without looking from her plate. " It would cheer you up." 
Barbara felt a little guilty at the thought of leaving the 
brother who had always seemed her chief responsibility. 

" Say, Tom, won't you wait for me t " said Janet, solemnly. 

"Yes, that 's just what I '11 do," said Tom, looking at 
her. "I had n't thought of it before; but that's just 
exactly what I '11 do, Janet. I '11 wait for you, now you 
mention it." 

" Will you, indeed, and double deed t " 

" Yes, indeed, and deed and double deed, I '11 wait for 
you, Janet." 

" That '11 be nice," said Janet, continuing her breakfast 
with meditative seriousness. " Now I 'm your sweetheart, 
ain't It" 




zxxni 

POSTSCBIPTDM 

T was in the last days of October, a few weeks 
after the proper close of the story which I 
have just related, when Henry Miller — the 
j moet matter-of-fact and anaensational of 
young men — threw his family into a state of excitement 
and supplied the gosaip of the neighborhood with a fresh 
topic by announcing at home and abroad that he was going 
to leave the country, either for the Iowa country to the 
west of the Mississippi or for the fertile bottom-lands ap 
north on the " Wiseonse " River, as it was called. He was 
the only son of his father, and had inherited the steady, 
plodding industry and frugality so characteristio of a 
" Pennsylvania Dntch " race. Until he was of age he was 
bound, not only by law, but by the custom of the country, 
to serve bis father much as a bondsman or an apprentice 
might have served, for an able-bodied son was distinctly 
recognized as an available and productive possession in 
that day. When he became of age his close-fisted father 
made no new arrangement with him, offered him no start, 



P08T8CB1PTUM 353 

paid him no wages, and gave him no share in the produce 
of the fields. It was enough, in the father's estimation, 
that Henry would succeed to a large part of the property at 
his death. But Henry, on mature reflection, had made up 
his mind that emigration would be better than a reversion- 
ary interest that must be postponed to the death of so 
robust a man as his father, who was yet in middle-life and 
who came of a stock remarkable for longevity. Was not 
his grandfather yet alive in Pennsylvania, while his great- 
grandfather had not been dead many years f It was after 
calcidating the '^ expectation of life" in the Miller family 
that Henry notified his father of his intention to go where 
land was cheap and open a large farm for himself. In vain 
the father urged that he could not get on without him, and 
that there would be no one to look after things if the 
father should die. Henry persisted that he must do some- 
thing for himself and that his father would have to hire 
a man, for he should surely leave as soon as the crops were 
gathered, so as to get land enough open in some frontier 
country to afford him a small crop of com the first year. 

Henry's mother and sisters were even more opposed to 
his going than his father was, and they did not hesitate to 
blame the senior Miller with great severity for not having 
"done something'' for Henry. Henry's father had never 
before known how unpleasant a man's home may come to 
be. He was reminded that Henry had not an acre, nor 
even a colt, that he could call his own, and that other 
farmers had done better than that. This state of siege 
30* 



354 THE OBAY80N8 

became presently quite intolerable, and the elder Miller 
resolved not only "to do something'^ for Henry, but to 
do it in such a way that his son would begin life very 
well provided for. He wanted to silence the clamor of the 
house and the neighborhood once for all, and prove to his 
critics how much they were mistaken. 

It was about a week after Henry's first resolution was 
taken that he and his father were finishing the corn-gather- 
ing. They were throwing the uushucked ears into a great 
wagon of the Pennsylvania pattern — a wagon painted 
blue, the " bed " of which rose in a great sweep at each end 
as though some reminiscence of the antique forms of 
marine architecture had affected its construction. When 
all the corn within easy throwing distance had been 
gathered, Henry, who was on the near side, would slip the 
reins from the standard over the fore wheel and drive 
forward the horses, which even in moving bit off the ends 
of com ears or nibbled at the greenest-looking blades 
within their reach. 

" Let ^s put on the sideboards,'' said the elder, " and we 
can finish the field this load." Though Miller's ancestors 
had come to this country with the Palatine immigration, 
away back in 1710, there was a little bit of German in his 
accent; he said something like "gom" for com. The 
sideboards were put up, and these were so adjusted that 
when they were on the wagon the inclosing sides were 
rendered level at the top and capable of holding nearly 
double the load contained without the boards. 



P08T8CBIPTUM 356 

" Henry,'' said the father, when the two were picking 
near together and throwing corn over the tail-gate of the 
wagon, " if you give up goin' away an' git married right 
off, an' settle toun here, I 'm a-mine to teed you that east 
eighty an' a forty of timber. Eh f " 

"That 's purty good," said Henry; "but if your deed 
waits till I find a wife, it may be a good while coming." 

"That eighty lays Uongside of Albaugh's medder an' 
lower gom-field," said the father, significantly. 

" You mean if I was to many Bache, Albaugh might 
give us another slice." 

" Of gourse he would ; an' I 'd help you put up a house, 
an' maybe I 'd let you hav' the roan golt. You 'd hav' the 
red heifer anyhow." 

"But I never took a shine to Bache; and if I did, I 
could n't noways come in. They 's too many knocking at 
that door." 

" But Bachel ain't no vool," said the elder. " She knows 
a good piece of lant w'en she sees it, an' maybe she 's got 
enough of voolin' rount." 

All that afternoon Henry revolved this proposition in 
his mind, and he even did what he had never done before 
in his life — he lay awake at night. The next day, after the 
midday dinner, he said to himself : " I might as well resk 
it. Albaugh 's got an all-fired good place, and all out of 
debt. And that 's a tre-mendous nice eighty father 's 
offered to give me." 

So he went up stairs and put on a new suit of blue jeans 



356 THE OBAYSOm 

fresh from his mother's loom. Then he walked over to 
Albangh's, to find Rachel sewing on the front porch. 

Rachel had been '^ kindah dauncey like," as her mother 
expressed it, ever since her visit to Barbara. She had 
received as many attentions as usual, but they seemed flat 
and unrelishable to her now. She began seriously to 
reflect that a girl past twenty-three was growing old in the 
estimation of the country, and yet she was further than 
ever from being able to make a choice between the lovers 
that paid her court, more or less seriously. 

When she looked up and saw Henry Miller coming in at 
the gate she felt a strange surprise. She had never before 
seen him in Sunday clothes or visiting on a week-day. 

"Hello, Henry! Looking for Ikef she asked, with 
neighborly friendliness. 

" No, not as I know of. I Ve come to talk to you, 
Rache." 

" To me t Well, you 're the last one I 'd look for to 
come to talk to me ; and in daytime, and corn-shucking 
not begun yet." There was an air of excited curiosity in 
her manner. It was plain to be seen that she was inwardly 
asking, " What can Henry Miller be up to, anyhow?" but 
to him she said, " Come in, Henry, an' take a cheer." 

" No, I '11 sed down here," he answered, taking a seat on 
the edge of the porch, like the outdoor man that he was, 
approaching a house with half reluctance. 

The relations between Henry and Rachel were uncon- 
strained. They had played " hide and whoop " together in 



P08TSCBIPTUM 857 

childhood, and times innumerable they had gone on black- 
berrying and other excursioDS togethor; he had swuiig her 
on long grape-vine swings on the hill-side; they had 
trudged to and from school in each other's company, 
exchanging sweet-cakes from their Innch-baskete, and yet 
they had never been lovers. 

" Bache," be said, locking bis broad, brown hands over 
his knee, " father says he 'U give me that east-eighty when- 
ever I get married, if I won't go off West." 

" You '11 be a good while getting married, Henry. Ton 
never was a hand to go after the girls." 

" No, but I might chance to get married shortly, for all 
that The boys that do a good deal of sparking and the girls 
that have a lot of beaux don't always get married first 
You 'd onght to know that, Bache, by your own experience." 

Rachel laughed good-naturedly, and waited with curi- 
osity to discover what all this was leading up to. 

" What I 'm thinking," said Henry, with the air of a man 
approaching a horse-trade cantioosly, lest be should make 
a false step, "is this: that eighty of onr'n jines onto your 
medder and west corn-field." 

"Do you want to sell itt" said RacheL "You might 
see father ; he 'd like to have it, I expect." 

" Can't yon gness what it is that I 'm coming at?" 

" No, I can't," said Rachel ; " not to save my life." 

"Looky here, Rache," and Henry gave his shoulders 
a twitch, " the two farms jine ; now, what if yon and me 
wasto jineT" 



358 THE 0BAY80N8 

" Well, Henry Miller, if you don't beat the Dutch ! I 
never heard the like of that in all my born days ! ^ Rachel 
had heard many propositions of marriage, but this sort of 
love-making, with eighty acres of prairie land for a buffer^ 
was a novelty to her. 

" Looky here, Rache," he said, in a tone of protest, "I Ve 
knew you ever since you was knee-high to a grasshopper. 
Now, what 's the use of fooling and nonsense betwixt you 
and me f You know what J am — a good, stiddy-going, 
hard-working farmer, shore to get my sheer of what 's to be 
had in the world without scrouging anybody else. And 
I know just exactly what you air. We Ve always got along 
mighty well together, and if I have n't ever made a fool of 
myself about your face, Vy, so much the better for me. 
Now, whaddy yeh say t Let 's make it a bargain." 

" W'y, Henry Miller, what a way of talking ! " 

"Rache, come, go along with me and see whereT^outs 
I 'm going to put up a house. Father 's promised to help 
me. It 's down by the spring, just beyand your medder 
fence. Will you go along downt" 

" Well, I don't care if I do go down with you, Henry. 
But it 's awful funny to come to such a subject in that 
way." 

Rachel put on her sun-bonnet, and they went through 
the orchard together. 

" We could put up a nice house there. Father 's willing 
to throw in a forty of timber too — the forty that jines 
onto this eighty over yander. We 'd be well fixed up to 



P0ST8CBIPTUM 369 

begin, no matter what yonr father done or did n't do for 
ns. Whaddy you think of the phinT" 

"You — you have n't said you loved me, or anything," 
said Rachel, piqued at having her charme quite left out of 
the account. But she could not hide from herself that 
Henry's proposition had substantial advantf^;e8. She only 
added, " What a curious man yon are ! " 

" Dont you believe I 'd make a good husbandt" 

"Yes, of course you would." 

" And a good provider T " 

*' Yes, I 'm shore of that." 

" Well, now, I 'm not going to pretend I 'm soft on yoo. 
If you say ' No,' well and good ; there 's an end. I sha'n't 
worry myself into consumption. You 've got aright to do 
as you please. I 'm not going to have folks say that I 'm 
another of the fools that's broke their hearts over Rache 
Albaugh. Once you 're mine, I '11 set my heart on you fast 
enough. But I never set my heart on anything I might 
n't be able to get." 

Rachel did not say auythiug to this bit of philosophy. 
She had in the last two weeks recognized the advisability 
of her getting married as soon as she could settle herself. 
Bat ou taking au inventory of her present stock of beaux, 
she had mentally rejected them all. They were prospect- 
ively an unprosperous lot, and Rachel was too mature to 
marry adversity for the sake of sentiment. She found her- 
self able to listen to Henry Miller's cool-blooded proposition 
with rather more tolerance than she felt when hearing the 



360 THE QBAT80N8 

kind of love-talk she had been used to. Why not get her 
father to do as well by her as the Millers would by Henry, 
or to do better, seeing he was the richer and had but two 
children t Then they might begin life with plenty of acres 
and a good stock of batter cows. 

Henry showed her where they coidd put their house, 
where the bam would be placed, and where they would 
have a garden. Rachel felt a certain pleasure in fancying 
herself the mistress of such a place. But it was contrary 
to all the precedents laid down in the few romances she 
had read for a woman to marry a man who was not her 
"slave"; that was the word the old romancers took delight 
in. She tried to coquet with Henry, in order to draw from 
him some sort of professions of love. A flirtation with a 
lay figure would have been quite as successful. He was 
plaiu prose, and she presently saw that if she accepted him 
it must be done in prose. She could n't help liking his 
very prose; she was a little tired of slaves; it seemed, on 
the whole, better to have a man at least capa1)le of being 
master of himself. 

In much the same tone — the tone of a man buying, or 
selling, or proposing a co-partnership for business purposes 
— Henry Miller carried on the conversation all the way 
back until they reached the corn-crib, where he came to a 
stand-still. 

" Whaddy yeh say, Rachel t Is it a bargain t " 

" Well, Henry, it 's sudden like. I want to take time to 
think it over." 



P08T8CBIPTUM 361 

" Then I '11 take back the offer and put out for the loway 
country. I 'm not a-going to have my skelp a-hanging to 
your belt for days and days, like the rest of them. What's 
the use of thinking Y You don't want to take Magill, do 
you!" 

"He 's too old, and his nose is rather red," laughed 
Rachel. 

" Nor Tom Grayson, I suppose f " Henry mentioned Tom 
as the second because he was the one about whom he had 
misgivings. 

" I give him the sack before the shooting, and I 'm not 
going to go back to him now." 

Rachel faltered a little in this reply, but she spoke with 
that resolute insincerity for which women hold an indul- 
gence in advance when their hearts are being searched. 

" Well," said Henry, " if you think you can do better by 
waiting, I 'm off. If you think I 'm about as good a man 
as you 're likely to pick up, here 's your chance. It 's 
going, going, gone with me. Either I marry you and take 
father's offer, or I put out for the loway country. I don't 
ask you to think I 'm perfection, but just to take a sober, 
common-sense look at things." 

Rachel saw that it was of no use to expect Henry to 
court her, and she could not help liking him the better for 
his honest straightforwardness. She looked down a min- 
ute, in the hope that he would say something that might 
make it easier for her to answer, but he kept his silence. 

" Henry," she said at length, rolling a corn-cob over and 
31